Various reasons are offered to explain, or are claimed to explain, housing difficulties in Mallorca and the Balearics and especially an ever upward trend in prices which outstrips that of other regions and makes homes to buy (or rent) unaffordable to much of the middle class as well as to the working class.
A population that in relative terms has been increasing more than anywhere else in Spain; the high level of foreign buying; the number of properties for holiday letting (legal and illegal); the number of empty properties; a lack of investment in public housing; planning bureaucracy; a shortage of land. These all get mentioned.
There is a mismatch between supply and demand, and latest figures from Spain's housing ministry indicate one way in which this has been manifesting itself.
According to the ministry, the stock of available housing in the Balearics in 2023 was 5,863 properties. In 2012, there were 15,285. The average cost of a mortgage has meanwhile almost doubled from 114,023 to 217,660 euros. The national average has gone up from 100,481 to 141,819 euros.
The fall in the available housing stock has been the greatest in the country with the exception of the Basque Country, figures from the College of Quantity Surveyors indicating that, where there has been new building, the number of apartments has been exceeded by the number of semidetached and standalone houses. And this suggests a developer preference for properties that can be marketed at prices often out of the reach of the average buyer in the Balearics.
The Balearic Government is due to introduce a new housing law in 2025. Since taking office in 2023, the Partido Popular have adopted measures that entail little cost to public authorities. The Build to Rent scheme is one. This involves the ceding of municipal land to developers so they can rent out at prices in accordance with the government's 'limited price' programme for a maximum of 75 years. At the end of this period, the properties will come under public ownership.
But there is pressure for far greater investment in the building of public housing than is currently the case and so an anticipation that this will feature in the new law.