House sales are continuing to grow strongly in the province and are we are now seeing the third consecutive month of significant improvement, after two years of tough economic recession. According to data released yesterday by the INE (Spanish Institute of Statistics) on property sale transactions, 1,958 apartments were sold in the province in February, 923 of which were new properties and 1,035 second hand or resale. In the last quarter of 2009 Alicante developers had already noted some green shoots of recovery and these are now confirmed by the official data. The Association of Real Estate Developers of Alicante, Provia, had indicated signs of a slight recovery. For the third consecutive month, more apartments were sold in Alicante than in the same period for the previous year. The growth in February was 8.5%.