FOREIGN demand is pushing property prices in Andalucia and Valencia to even greater record highs – rising even faster than in Madrid.
New figures from Idealista show that the average price of a second-hand home in Spain has jumped 15.7% in a year, reaching an unprecedented €2,555 per square metre.
But along the Mediterranean, where foreign buyers already make up nearly half of all transactions in some regions, the surge is sharper.
A modest two-bed flat in coastal Málaga that might have cost €185,000 last year now sells for over €217,000. In Alicante, the same home goes for around €190,000, up nearly €30,000 in twelve months.
Foreign citizens now buy over half of all homes in Alicante province (53%) and nearly 44% in Málaga, according to the General Council of Notaries.
In these coastal markets, Spanish buyers have become a minority in their own housing market, where prices are increasingly pegged to incomes earned abroad.
READ MORE: Renting a home in Spain uses up 11% more of household income compared to buying a property
In Malaga’s ‘Golden Triangle’ of Marbella, Benahavís and Estepona, new-build luxury developments routinely exceed €5,200 per square metre, and in some beachfront projects push beyond €5,500sqm.
These are prices calculated for London or Amsterdam salaries, not Andalucía’s median wage of around €22,000 a year.
The jumps have pushed Spain’s southern and eastern coasts to record highs, with property in the Andalucia and Valencia communities now rising even faster than in the Spanish capital.
READ MORE: Brits and foreigners are still hoovering up property in Spain – here’s where they are buying
In Andalucía, prices have soared 20.6 % to an all-time record of €2,721sqm, meaning a typical 80-square-metre flat now costs around €217,000.
In Valencia, prices are up 17.1 % to €2,357sqm, or roughly €189,000 for the same size home.
Both regions are keeping pace with Madrid, but still lag by almost half in absolute terms, where prices stand at €4,395sqm, up 20.8 %. Buyers in the capital pay around €351,000 for a typical flat.
Focus is shifting from the capital-centred market to the coast, powered by remote workers, lifestyle migrants and investors from northern Europe and beyond.
READ MORE: Costa del Sol property prices soar 17% as two-bed flat reaches an eyewatering €318,000
Economists warn that this is no ordinary recovery.
Seventeen years after Spain’s last housing crash, the market has not just rebounded – it has re-segregated, creating a two-speed country: inland provinces still far below pre-crisis levels, while the coasts are priced for foreign incomes.
In Aragon, prices remain 23 % below their 2007 peak; in Castilla-La Mancha, nearly 30 %.
But on the Costa del Sol and Costa Blanca, foreign buyers have become the market itself, driving a boom that looks increasingly detached from Spanish wages.
“The economy appears to be booming thanks to these influxes,” as El País recently noted, “but the local population is actually living worse than before.”
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