RENTAL prices across Malaga province have surged to an all-time record high, defying a broader national slowdown as tenants face an unprecedented squeeze.

Tenants in the province are now paying an average asking price of €18.8 per square metre each month, according to the latest third-quarter report from property portal Idealista.

That means an average 80-square-metre, two-bedroom flat across the province now sets renters back roughly €1,504 every month.

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Malaga is the only province in the whole of Andalucia currently sitting at its historic price ceiling, having climbed 5.7% over the past 12 months.

Nowhere is the crunch felt more acutely than in Marbella, the most expensive municipality in the region, where rents reached €23.6 per square metre in September after an 8.7% annual jump.

For a tenant seeking a standard two-bedroom flat in the resort town, the average monthly bill now stands at a staggering €1,888.

The town sits just a fraction below its peak of €23.9 reached in July.

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Further west along the coast, Estepona has also smashed through its previous ceiling to hit an unprecedented €21.1 per square metre, up 6.2% over the year.

A two-bedroom flat in Estepona now tops €1,688 a month.

Mijas has similarly entered record territory at €17.1 per square metre after climbing 7.2% in a year, while inland Ojen set a fresh record of €23.2 per square metre.

In Malaga city, rates hit an all-time high of €16.5 per square metre, keeping the provincial capital as the fifth-most expensive city in Spain, behind only Madrid, Barcelona, Palma, and San Sebastian.

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While average rents across Andalucia ticked down 1.4% over the summer quarter to €14.1 per square metre, supply shortages on the coast continue to drive asking rates up.

Francisco Iñareta, spokesman for Idealista, warned that rental stock across the country remains in “free fall”.

“Financial capacity no longer guarantees being able to find a home in a market that shrinks by the day,” Iñareta said.

He argued that government measures aimed at restricting landlords are having the unintended consequence of wiping out available long-term lets.

Across the wider region, Jaen remains Andalucia’s cheapest province at €7 per square metre, less than half the going rate on the Costa del Sol.

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