Spain's Property Boom Needs Better Mortgage Infrastructure

Let me start with a number that puts everything in context. In 2025, foreign buyers completed almost 97,300 property transactions in Spain, a new all-time record. In the first half of the year alone, international buyers accounted for nearly one in five of all property sales registered in Spain, at an average price of €2,417 per m², the highest average in the historical series. In provinces like Alicante and Málaga, where Habeno operates every day, foreigners accounted for 43% and 32% of all transactions respectively.

Only an estimated 25–30% of foreign property buyers in Spain finance their purchase through a Spanish mortgage. The majority pay cash, not because they prefer to, but because the process leaves them no real alternative.

Banks became more comfortable financing foreign buyers through 2025 as long as documentation was clear and income was verifiable. The willingness is there. The demand is there. But something between those two realities is still causing far too many capable, creditworthy buyers to complete their purchase without Spanish financing, or not at all.

That gap between is not a failure. It is an opportunity, arguably one of the most significant in European real estate finance right now. And I believe we are at exactly the right moment to go after it together.

After 20 months as CCO at Habeno, working daily alongside banks, real estate partners and international buyers across more than 30 nationalities, this is the conversation I want to start.

The demand signal is impossible to ignore

The numbers at Habeno reflect what we see across the broader market. In Q1 this year, our mortgage applications grew by 30–40% compared to the same period last year. In 2025 alone, we supported buyers from over 30 nationalities, Scandinavians, Germans, Dutch, British, Americans, Poles, and many more, all choosing Spain, all moving through the same journey.

Non-resident buyers consistently purchase at significantly higher price points than both resident foreigners and Spanish nationals. These are well-capitalised, financially strong buyers with clear intent. The appetite is there. The question is how much of it we are actually capturing, and how much more we could.

The buyers have evolved. The opportunity now is to evolve with them.

The international buyers coming to Spain today are largely from countries at the frontier of digital transformation, Scandinavia, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK. They manage their investments, banking and daily lives through their phones. They arrive with high expectations around transparency, speed and predictability, not because they are demanding, but because that is simply what they are used to.

This is not a challenge unique to Spain. Financial institutions across Europe are navigating exactly the same shift. But Spain is in a particularly strong position: the underlying demand is already here, the market momentum is real, and the window to lead rather than follow is open right now.

The banks that move intentionally in this direction, building processes and infrastructure designed around the international buyer, will not just serve this segment better. They will own it.

What Habeno has learned and built

At Habeno, we have invested heavily in digitising and structuring the parts of the customer journey that we can control, onboarding, document collection, communication, status transparency throughout the process. We have built what we believe a modern international mortgage experience should look like from the intermediary side.

The results are measurable: higher conversion, shorter timelines, and buyers who understand what is happening at every stage and feel confident through the process.

But we are clear-eyed about something important: we can only solve part of the equation. The most impactful part, the part that ultimately determines whether a motivated, creditworthy buyer completes their purchase with financing, sits inside the banks. And that is precisely why this conversation matters.

Four areas where the real opportunity lies

Based on everything we see at the intersection of buyers, banks and the process every day, I believe four things represent the greatest shared opportunity for the market:

1. Moving from fragmented workflows to shared digital infrastructure.

The international mortgage journey today often involves multiple systems and handoffs that were built for a different era. There is a real opportunity to streamline this, not just for the customer experience, but for internal efficiency, security and scalability. Banks that invest in this infrastructure will process more volume with the same teams, and create a foundation that compounds in value over time.

2. Bringing decision-making closer to the client and the deal.

The most consistent feedback we hear from buyers, and from our own teams — is around the predictability of the process. When credit decisions are made with full context, close to the actual relationship and transaction, something important happens: timelines shorten, communication improves, and the buyer feels seen. This is not about changing credit appetite. It is about giving experienced professionals the information and mandate to make better decisions faster. The effect on conversion is significant, and the effect on credit quality can be neutral or even positive.

3. Standardising criteria and expectations for international buyers.

One of the clearest ways to reduce friction without changing any risk parameters is simply to make requirements clearer and more consistent. When a buyer knows from day one exactly what is needed, in what format and why, the process moves faster and smoother for everyone. Standardisation also makes it easier for intermediaries to prepare high-quality applications, which directly benefits the bank on the receiving end.

4. Treating mortgage intermediaries as a genuine strategic channel.

This might be the most important long-term shift. Intermediaries like Habeno are not just a distribution layer. We qualify buyers, structure documentation, manage expectations and deliver applications that are ready to approve. In markets where intermediaries have been fully integrated into the mortgage ecosystem, the UK and Sweden being the most developed example, it has transformed both volume and efficiency for lenders, without increasing risk. Spain is at the beginning of this evolution. The banks that adapt their processes to work with intermediaries as partners will gain market share, improve application quality and reach buyer segments they would not otherwise access. This is a channel that is here to stay, and one that rewards early investment.

An invitation, not a conclusion

Spain already has everything it needs to become the most accessible property market in Europe for international buyers. The fundamentals are exceptional. What this moment calls for is not a single actor making a single decision. It is a genuine, ongoing dialogue between banks, intermediaries and the wider ecosystem, about how to build the infrastructure that matches the market we already have.

At Habeno, we are fully committed to that work. We have built our part of the picture. Now the most valuable conversations are the ones we have together with the banks who see this potential and want to move toward it.

If that is you — I would genuinely love to talk.