The reason why property and rent prices are so high is because over the last 25 years few new homes have been built and at the same time the local population has doubled. Simple. Unless the islands embark on a massive property building programme little is going to change.
Take Palma for instance. There are literally hundreds of acres of council-owned land sitting vacant. For what? Meanwhile, thousands of people are struggling to pay the rent every month. You can’t point the finger at anyone in particular.
Successive governments are to blame for the lack of new housing. There has never been a proper property plan. Now, political parties are desperately trying to find a scapegoat. As usual, it is the foreigners, because they can’t vote.
The latest proposal involved banning non-residents from buying property. An outrageous idea when you think that a sizeable number of properties sold in the Balearics are second homes. This market generates many millions for the local economy and also supports hundreds if not thousands of jobs.
Get building is the only solution, but it will be interesting to see how many developers want to build cheap, affordable housing. This is a problem made in Mallorca, leave foreigners alone.