THE WALL STREET JOURNAL​ | Real estate recovery is taking shape in the main cities of Spain. The boost in residential business could be a tale of two cities: Madrid and Barcelona.

Stable prices in Madrid and Barcelona explain why experts expect the construction sector to rebound in Spain in 2015, after seven years in a comatose state. Demand is growing in this modest economic recovery, although most construction will take place in Spain’s two largest cities.

Nobody expected a boom in housing comparable to the bubble years. Over the first ten months of 2014, the number of building licenses granted for the Madrid metropolitan area was close to that of June 2006, at the height of the construction bubble.

Residential construction is facing a situation in which Spain is trying to come to terms with the one million houses estimated to be sitting empty, unsold, which may seem “contradictory, explains Fernando Encinar, head of research at Idealista. “In 2015, the country’s stock of homes will be high, but the lack of property in certain markets will be what leads to construction of new housing.

SOURCES: Expansión