Although this information is not official as the Ministry does not publish it, I do consider it as extremely important because it complements the data on the number of transactions and the index price.
To estimate the inventory, I used different por-tals and multiple listing tools that would not give me the exact number of properties for sale but at least the tendency. Going first to the chart of Benahavís, it is easy to see that the inventory, especially the one of villas, keeps going up, which does not help sellers trying to sell their properties. For apartments, the inventory re-mained stable until 2016 but has started to go up again since then. For villas, it keeps going up and has doubled the number of properties for sale since 2013. On the other hand in Marbella, we are starting to see decreases in the inventory and that, with time, will push prices up and drive the change from a buyer’s market to a seller’s market. That reduction in the stock of apartments for sale is mainly on properties below 250.000 €, while the number of properties for sale on top of that 250.000 € has remained equal for the last year. The increasing inventory is not a positive signal of a good market and we can see two different scenarios for Marbella and Benahavis.
