Unemployment and housing prices

• Annual evolution of unemployment and housing prices, Spain.
  • Left axis: average unemployment rate for each year.
  • Right axis: average price growth rate (inverted) for each year.

• Quarterly evolution of unemployment and housing prices, Spain.
  • Left axis: HPI (Housing Price Index) not inflation adjusted (base 100 = 2015).
  • Right axis: average unemployment rate (inverted) for each quarter.

Interpretation and observations

Unemployment and housing prices have an inverse relationship. We can distinguish several outstanding periods:

• 1986 - 1990: Unemployment falls, housing prices rise.
• 1991 - 1996: Unemployment rises, housing prices fall.
• 1997 - 2006: Unemployment falls, housing prices rise.
• 2007 - 2013: Unemployment rises, housing prices fall.
• 2014 - 2020: Unemployment falls, housing prices rise.

Data sources

• Unemployment (Results > Annual or Quarterly > Unemployed persons > Unemployment rates by sex and age group): Link
• Housing prices, from 1985 to 2006, according to Sociedad de Tasación (Access to data is under request, but can be seen in the linked publication): Publication, Link
• Housing prices, from 2007 onwards, according to the notaries (Grupo 5 > Acto 501 - Compraventa inmuebles > Inmuebles en fincas urbanas, viviendas): Link
• Housing Price Index: Link
• Inflation data (Table: average inflation Spain (CPI) - by year): Link