More than half of property purchases in south Tenerife are now made by foreigners

Lack of available housing continues to be one of the serious problems that the Canary Islands is facing, despite the fact that, according to data from the Treasury, there are close to 15,000 empty ones in the archipelago. However, the main problem is not only in Tenerife and Gran Canaria but is also being felt in the tourist areas of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura.

The population increase in these islands, which in Tenerife is more than 10,000 new inhabitants a year, has led to a huge shortage of properties for sale and especially for rent, which entails, despite the decree of the State Government to prevent an increase of more than 2%, greater demand than supply.

To this, we must add that 50% of the purchase of homes, for example in the south of Tenerife, is in the hands of foreigners (95% of which are from EU countries), as recognized by the Professional Association of Real Estate Experts, who use them as a residence for one or two months a year and then put them up for holiday let and not long-term let.

This situation means that many workers in the south are having to overpay for smaller properties, are sharing, are moving further away from their place of work, or are looking for alternative employment away from the tourist areas, which is one of the main reasons given by the SMEs in the South of Tenerife as to why they can’t find staff.

Property transactions by foreigners in the Canary Islands amounted to 9,067 operations last year, 75.3% more than in the same period of 2021, according to data from the Ministry of Transport, Mobility, and Urban Agenda. However, only 1,132 of these were made by foreign residents (43.2% more than in 2021) which is why so many properties are ‘coming off’ the long-term let market.

In addition, the average selling prices in the archipelago were 2,306 euros/m2, which represents an increase of 7.4%.