The Government’s decision to suspend all non-essential economic activity between Monday 30 March and Monday 13 April resulted in the downing of tools at 4,809 developments affecting a total of 131,471 new homes across Spain. Of those, 134 sites and 2,629 homes were located in Galicia, according to data compiled by the Brainsre Big Data real estate platform.
Of the more than 2,600 new homes under construction in Galicia, only 36% correspond to large developments comprising more than 50 units. Specifically, 13 new developments and 948 homes, mostly distributed between A Coruña, Santiago de Compostela, Pontevedra and Vigo.
Work began on the majority of the 2,629 new homes under construction in the region in 2019, 39% to be specific. However, during the first 3 months of this year, work started on 33% of them. “That figure is 16 percentage points above the national average, which points to a growing trend in the number of building projects under construction in Galicia in 2020”, highlights Antonio Ramudo, RE Data Scientist at Brainsre.
The stoppage caused by Covid-19 puts the delivery deadlines set by the property developers at risk. In fact, 45% of the homes were scheduled to be finished this year, equivalent to more than 1,170 units. “That percentage will certainly decrease in favour of 2021, the year in which almost half of the homes in progress were already forecast to be completed. Almost 100 homes distributed across 9 projects were expected to be completed in April 2020 alone in Galicia. It is looking increasingly unlikely that the keys will be handed over on time for these, and many others.” explains Ramudo. Likewise, the development of 1,300 homes was scheduled to be completed next year and 140 in 2022.
By type, 80% of the homes on standby are made up of multi-family homes, which correspond to more than 2,100 units. Meanwhile, 7% corresponds to single-family homes and 13% to social housing properties.
A Coruña, the region worst affected by the shutdown
Of the more than 2,600 new-build homes in Galicia, A Coruña is the worst affected province since 51% of the total are located there, equivalent to more than 1,300 homes and 55 developments. Pontevedra is home to 35% of the residential products under construction with more than 900 homes in progress across 52 projects. On the other hand, Lugo and Ourense carry little weight in terms of new build projects, since they account for just 10% and 4% of the Galician total, respectively. “There are no major developments and no large domestic property developers there. In the case of the province of Ourense, there are just five developments on the market”, says Ramudo.
At the municipal level, A Coruña is home to the largest volume of new build properties with 559 homes, located mostly on the Someso – Parque Ofimático axis, where four projects comprising more than 300 homes in total are on standby. It is in this area of the city where the largest development currently under construction is located, Torre Amura, with 100 homes, which are being promoted by Habitat Inmobiliaria.
It is followed by Vigo, where 477 homes are under construction across 16 sites. The largest development is Rúa Morcego with 124 units, which the Viqueira Group started work on in 2019. That complex has the largest number of homes under construction in all of Galicia. The third municipality is Santiago de Compostela, which has 432 new homes underway.
In other municipalities, the construction boom that Oleiros (A Coruña) is enjoying, with more than 200 houses under construction, stands out; it even surpasses some of the provincial capitals, such as Pontevedra and Ourense, as well as some of the most populated municipalities, such as Ferrol. It should be noted that up to 41 of Galicia’s 314 municipalities (13% of the total) have had new residential construction projects suspended.
Metrovacesa and Habitat in Galicia
The lack of large domestic property developers in the region also stands out. Metrovacesa and Habitat Inmobiliaria are the only two property developers out of the top ten to have homes under construction in Galicia, and the latter only launched its “North” delegation in 2019.
Metrovacesa is the property developer most affected by the stoppage in the region, with four projects underway comprising 214 homes in A Coruña, Santiago de Compostela and Pontevedra. After Andalucía, Cataluña and the Canary Islands, Galicia is the market where Metrovacesa currently has the most homes under construction, with 6% of its units being built in that autonomous region.
The Xunta de Galicia is ranked in second place in the list of property developers with the most homes under construction, thanks to various protected housing projects that are underway in A Coruña (Parque Ofimático) and Vigo (A Chantada and Cambeses).
