Madrid, March 5 (IANS/EFE) Home sales in Spain plunged 24.6 percent in 2009, figures released by the Spanish Land and Mercantile Registrars Association showed.

The figures released Thursday showed that 423,114 home sales were registered last year in Spain, with used-home sales falling 27.8 percent and new-home sales declining 21.8 percent.

The collapse of the real estate industry is one of the main factors exacerbating Spain's economic crisis, since construction had largely powered the Spanish economic boom of the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Heavy job losses in that sector have disproportionately affected immigrants, many of them from Latin America.

Spain's gross domestic product has contracted for seven consecutive quarters, although the country's central bank said in its latest report that the Spanish economy could gain from a boost in exports to other nations that have already begun to emerge from the global recession.