According to the most recent report from the Colombian Chamber of Construction (Camacol), home sales declined sharply in the first quarter of 2023 compared to the same period last year.
In this sense, the deficit was maintained in 2022 with a 62% drop in April compared to the same month.
In the specific case of social welfare housing (VIS), the figures were down in the fourth month of 2023 as well. 5,674 units were sold, ie 11,117 less than the same month of 2022, ie a decrease of 66%.
Total home sales fell
For its part, the report also shows that overall sales fell 55% during the first four months of the year, with a contraction of 59% in low-income housing.
Furthermore, in the last 12 months to April, 186,416 new homes were sold, representing a decrease of 30%; The decline in VIS during the said period was 31% annually.
Camacol’s president, Guillermo Herrera, assured that “all actions, in a countercyclical strategy, will be decisive to reactivate the behavior of the gross domestic product (GDP) of the construction sector, especially that of buildings.”
As revealed by Dane, the GDP decline in this sector was 3.1% in the first quarter of the year compared to the same period in 2022, mainly due to the behavior of civil works.
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However, construction of residential and non-residential buildings registered a positive variation of 2.6% during the first three months of the year, showing a decrease of 11.9% over the same period last year.
Finally, Camacol affirmed that it is important to re-energize construction activity, given the risks to employment that cannot reverse the current trend.
Noting that new VIS housing construction starts declined 39% in April compared to the same month in 2022, and the amount of activity halting its construction process increased 30% year-over-year in the first quarter of the year Hui.
They concluded, “These results should be seen as a warning sign to implement all regional and housing policy actions that allow the amount of activity that suspends its construction processes.”
