The president of the Balearic Government, Francina Armengol, said today that the government is already studying and “working” on the possibility of limiting the purchase of homes by non-residents to guarantee to make it easier for local residents to access the property market.
Armengol told parliament that housing policy is “key” for her government and that she is “aware” of the difficulties that exist in accessing housing on the islands.
The president hopes that Spain’s forthcoming presidency of the European Union (EU) will open the way for an analysis of the Balearics’ uniqueness as an and make this initiative possible.
The spokesperson for MÉS per Menorca, Josep Castell, asked the president to set up a working group to study this issue, as recently approved by the Parliament in a non-legislative proposal presented by the Minorcan branch of party.
“The European regulations can be changed,” said Castell, who insisted on the need to find an exception for the Balearics to make this limitation possible.
So far, no regional government has said it intends to follow the Balearic example to limit the purchase of housing by non-residents to alleviate the shortage and increasing lack of housing on the islands, although there are other areas with similar problems, such as Valencia, which considers that these are measures that “should not be disregarded.
The latest data published by the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda reveal that in the Balearics non-residents - more than 97% foreigners and only 2.4% Spaniards - bought 27.91% of the homes sold in the second quarter of this year.
In the Canary Islands this proportion was 23.38 % and in the Valencian Community 21.04 %, although several provinces exceeded these figures, with Alicante at the head of all of them (36.49 %), followed by Malaga (29.88 %) and Santa Cruz de Tenerife (25.95 %), ahead of others such as Las Palmas (20.74 %), Girona (20.54 %) and Murcia (14.36 %).