MADRID: During the first three months of 2015, according to the Ministry of Development, the country’s official Colleges of Technical Architects have granted licenses to build 10,681 homes, an increase of 22.8% over the figure Residential building permits rise as the Spanish construction sector awakesreported in the same period last year.
In terms of the number of licences issued for new constructions and extensions up to 31st March this year is 16,979, a rise of 17% on the 2014 equivalent figure. It is also noticeable that the properties for which permission is being sought are of a decent size: the average floor area for apartments so far this year is 114 square metres, while for houses the equivalent figure is 201 square metres.
Already in 2014 it appeared that the bottom of the spectacular slump in the construction sector in Spain had been reached, as the annual total of 34,873 represented an increase of 1.7% on the year before. As increases go this one couldn’t have been much smaller, but even so it came as a relief after seven consecutive years of significant decreases from the incredible figures of the last decade: in 2006 licences were awarded for the construction of over 217,000 residential properties in the first quarter alone, twenty times more than in 2015.
