As if a giant stood up in less time than it takes to go from zero to sixty with a Honda. Marc Márquez or the Ducati of Jorge Martin. This is how housing prices have skyrocketed in the Canary Islands. And no one can assure that the ceiling has been reached, especially when the solution to the cost of apartments and houses is as obvious as it is impossible in the short term: build public housing and encourage private initiative to do the same. The many years that have passed without the Administration moving a single brick are the main reason why prices skyrocket in the Islands at the first opportunity. Since the real estate bubble completely deflated at the beginning of 2016 – taking out all the air of decades of junk mortgages and spurious credit cost two years more in the Archipelago than in Spain as a whole–, The value of housing in the main cities of the region has increased an average of almost 50%. The property that seven years ago cost 100,000 euros today costs 150,000.
An extraordinary increase that is revealed by the statistics of the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda. The official data thus corroborate what was already noted in the figures from specialized firms such as Idealista or Pisos.com, that is, that the prices of apartments and houses are at historic highs in the Islands. And they will be sooner or later in those municipalities or localities where they have not yet reached the record levels of the real estate bubble. The spiral seems to have no end.
The database of the Ministry led by Raquel Sánchez Jiméneznow in office, shows that the most touristic municipalities are the ones that suffer the most from housing shortages. The bloodiest case in the Autonomous Community is that of Adeje, south of Tenerife. In the first quarter of 2016, which was when the market hit bottom in the region, the average price per square meter was 1,498.1 euros. Seven years and three months later, in the second quarter of 2023 – which is as far as the Ministry’s statistics cover –, Those 1,498 euros are already worth 2,693.5. The increase is practically 80%. So Buying a house in the tourist town of Adeje, where many of the most luxurious hotels in the Archipelago are located, is an impossible task. for the vast majority of canaries. That penthouse or apartment that at the beginning of 2016 cost 100,000 euros now costs 180,000, and the one that cost 200,000 is worth 360,000 today. The worst thing, however, is that the situation in Adeje is very similar to what the real estate market is going through in the other main cities of the Autonomous Community.
That penthouse or apartment in Adeje that in 2016 cost 200,000 euros today costs a whopping 360,000
In Tenerife, the cases of Granadilla de Abona, in the south of the island, and Puerto de la Cruz, in the north, are also bloody. In the period in question –from the beginning of 2016 to the second quarter of this year–, The average value of the square meter of housing went from 907.6 to 1,575.4 euros in Granadilla, an increase of 73.6%. In Puerto de la Cruz it remained at a no less extraordinary 72.3%going from 1,253.5 euros at the end of the bubble to the current 2,159.3 euros.
These three Tenerife municipalities are where prices have risen the most since the lows of 2016, but this This does not mean that the other large cities of the Islands are not suffering from housing shortages like never before.. Not at all. In the also tourist town of San Bartolome de Tirajanain this case in Gran Canaria, three quarters of the same thing happens: The average cost of a square meter was 1,578.3 euros and today it is 2,642.2 euros, an increase of 67.4%. San Bartolomé de Tirajana and Adeje are precisely the only municipalities where the average price of real estate exceeds the crazy barrier of 2,600 euros.
In the two capitals, the increases are gentler but very noticeable. The average value of the square meter in Santa Cruz of Tenerife It is 1,622.3 euros, 46.8% more than seven years ago; and in The Gran Canarian palms It is 1,746.1 euros, 33.4% more. As for the other main island cities –Agüimes, Arrecife, Arucas, Ingenio, Puerto del Rosario, Santa Lucía de Tirajana, Telde, Arona, La Laguna, La Orotava and Los Realejos–, prices range between 1,973.4 euros for Arona and 1,111.4 for Ingenio; and the increases, between 51.3% in Puerto del Rosario and 22.3% in Los Realejos. In the same period, the average salary of Canarians barely rose 14%, around four times less than the cost of housing.
+80%
Adeje
- The price per square meter of housing in Adeje at the beginning of 2016, when the bubble completely deflated, was at 1,498.1 euros. Today it stands at 2,693.5 euros, 79.8% more.
+74%
Passion fruit
- In Granadilla de Abona, also in the south of Tenerife, the value per square meter went from 907.6 euros in 2016 to the current 1,575.4. The increase is 73.6%.
+67%
San Bartolome de Tirajana
- In San Bartolomé de Tirajana, the increase in the average price per square meter of housing has also been extraordinary: from 1,578.3 euros in 2016 to 2,642.2 in June 2023, 67.4%.
