A ‘donut effect’? Assessing housing transactions during COVID-19 across the Spanish rural–urban hierarchy

ABSTRACT

We assess if a 'donut effect' has occurred in Spain during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our results show a synchronized 30% drop in housing purchases during the national lockdown in 2020, followed by a significant increase from 2021 across the rural-urban continuum, including core cities, suburbs, towns and rural areas, exceeding pre-pandemic levels. We thus found no evidence of a ‘donut effect’ in Spain.

KEYWORDS:

• housing purchases
• 'donut effect'
• COVID-19 pandemic
• rural-urban continuum
• Spain

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Correction

During the COVID-19 pandemic, a ‘donut effect’ has been documented in urban areas, with declining housing activity in core cities but rises in surrounding less dense areas (Ramani & Bloom, 2021). Yet, this evidence has been limited to the United States. In Spain, we know that cities have recorded increasing levels of internal migration to less densely populated areas (González-Leonardo et al., 2022a). We use half-yearly register data from the Spanish Ministerio de Transportes, Movilidad y Agenda Urbana (MITMA) to analyse housing transactions in four territorial typologies between 2017 and 2022: core cities, suburbs, towns and rural areas.

Figure 1a shows the total number of housing purchases by territorial typology, Figure 1b an index number with base 100 = S2 2019, and Figure 1c the distribution of transactions amongst typologies. The number and distribution of purchases remained largely stable from 2017 to 2019, fluctuating around 280,000 per year – the majority in core cities (39%) and suburbs (30%), with a slight increase in rural areas. In the first semester of 2020, during the national lockdown in Spain, the pandemic triggered a 30% general decrease in transactions, declining to 194,000. Since the second half of 2020, when the lockdown was lifted, housing purchases have increased exceeding pre-pandemic levels (291,000). Our index number indicates an accelerated increase in real estate transactions across Spain, slightly higher in rural areas. Yet, we note a remarkable degree of stability in the distribution of housing purchases across the rural-urban continuum.

Figure 1. Housing transactions in Spain by territorial typology, 2017–22.

Source: Compiled by the authors using data from MITMA.

Our findings suggest no signs of a ‘donut effect’ in Spain during the COVID-19 pandemic. They reveal a synchronized decline in housing transitions during the national lockdown, and a subsequent bounce across Spain, particularly notable in rural areas reflecting a persistent rise in internal migration movements to these areas since the wake of COVID-19 from 2021 to 2022 (González-Leonardo et al 2022b; González-Leonardo & Rowe, 2022). The recovery in housing transactions in core cities challenges the ‘donut effect’ observed in the United States as a universal trend caused by COVID-19.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article was originally published with errors, which have now been corrected in the online version. Please see Correction (http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21681376.2023.2203557)

Additional information

Funding

The authors gratefully acknowledge funding from IIASA and the National Member Organizations that support the institute. This work was also supported by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme projects QUANTMIG (870299) & FUME (870649).