Statistical Error

In preparation for that momentous time of the month when the INE releases Spanish home sale statistics we took a glance at the competing quarterly series issued by the housing ministry. Catching our eye enough to look into the matter further was the rather unexpected 21.5% year-on-year drop in sales of new homes. The results are shown in the chart on the left.

Most notable is the simple observation that the Ministerio de Vivienda fairly regularly comes up with a higher number than the INE - a total of 111,528 more in the three years that we've compared. Secondly, the former's numbers are considerably more volatile than those of the county's official purveyor of things numerical.

The lesser jumpiness of the INE results is easily attributable to the distinct methodology used - property registry records as opposed to the notarial data that Vivienda utilizes. The fact is that the time it takes the registries to work through the documents dumped on them by the notaries before they issue the actual title acts as an automatic smoothing mechanism for the series.

Less comprehensible is the five-and-a-half percent difference in actual numbers. Is it possible that property registrars send back such a quantity of purchase agreements to notaries playing fast, loose or just plain careless with the fine points of the law - and then they get double counted? We doubt it, but the chronically fractious relationship* that exists between these two groups of monopoly professionals places it within the realm of the possible.

In any regard, we'll stick with the INE's figures. Aside from our distrust of Vivienda's statistics in general, a property deed strikes us as being a bit more definitive than a purchase agreement. They should be out later today.

*The writer once found himself caught in the middle of what was surely one of those internecine battles - but probably made much worse by the fact that the offending notary was from Sevilla and the very picky registrar in Madrid. Even intervention by our uncle, a retired property registrar himself, couldn't make his colleague budge on the matter. Fortunately however, it was brought to our attention that the manager of the Madrid office was the sister of an ex-wife of a deceased cousin, so when the documentation was finally put in order the matter went in the side door and directly to the top of the pile - and was resolved three days before it was to cost us 30,000 euros for failure to deliver.

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