Housing sales fell by 17.7 percent in Spain during 2011, according to figures published Friday by the Spanish National Institute of Statistics (INE).

The crisis in Spain deeply affected the country's construction industry over the past 12 months.

During 2011, 361,831 sales were registered in Spain. The fall in sales is in sharp contrast with the 6.3 percent increase that was registered in 2010.

The only consolation for the Spanish housing market is that this years' fall has not been as dramatic as that of 2008 and 2009, when sales fell by 28.8 percent and 24.9 percent respectively.

Housing sales boomed temporarily in 2011 just before former PM Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero slashed tax breaks for home buyers. After that, sales decreased steadily throughout the rest of the year.

Zapatero also reduced the sales tax on newly constructed homes from 8 percent to 4 percent, in an attempt to clear the backlog of empty properties and boost the construction industry. However, the measure, still in force despite the change of government, has still to yield some results.

Sales remained unstable during the second half of 2011 and it is hard to see an established pattern other than that of a downward trend, given that home purchases fell by 28 percent in August, 18 percent in October and 14.4 percent in November.

The new Spanish government under Mariano Rajoy is urging banks to make credit more readily available to home buyers. However, with the over 5 million, and rising, unemployed and reduced job security, it will be hard to see an improvement in the housing market any time soon.