The encampment for the right to housing in Palma denounced this Wednesday, coinciding with the second day of the general policy debate in Parliament, the distance between institutional discussions and the real needs of the citizenry. "We see a great difference between the political debate that the institutions are having and the needs and concerns of the people on the street," stated Miquel Marc Pou, one of the spokespersons for the social movement, who accuses political leaders of prioritizing the interests of property owners and the real estate sector over the demands of the population that needs to access affordable housing.

GEN-GOB has submitted allegations to the Balearic Islands' Agrarian Law Project because it considers that the text distorts the objective of promoting agricultural activity and favors tourist and urban uses of rustic land. The entity maintains that the regulation could consolidate the tertiarization of the countryside and hinder the competitiveness of farmers, in addition to generating inequalities between islands, especially in the case of Ibiza, which is subjected to high tourist pressure.

The cost of housing in the Balearic Islands pushes a total of 16,195 workers into a situation of poverty, according to a report made public this Tuesday by the NGO Oxfam Intermón. The study, titled When working is not enough: the impact of housing costs on working poverty, reflects that the poverty rate in the Archipelago stands at 6.12% before taking into account the money spent on housing, compared to 8.84% after, 2.72 points higher.

The housing encampment in Palma has called for various neighborhood assemblies in the city to prepare for the general housing strike on November 11th. The initiative aims to involve residents in the organization of the day of protest, which is framed as a mobilization "against the housing business." In parallel, Arran and the Student Union of the Catalan Countries (SEPC) have announced three strike committees to begin mobilizing the youth of Mallorca.

The Balearic Islands have become such an expensive real estate market that even foreign buyers, who have traditionally had greater purchasing power than residents, are beginning to reduce their operations. In fact, the data shows this. In 2025, foreigners paid an average of 548,662 euros per home, 80% more than the 304,120 euros disbursed by domestic buyers, according to data from the Balearic Islands Housing Observatory. This year, however, the situation has changed completely and it seems that foreigners no longer see the Balearic Islands as a great business opportunity.

The Balearic Islands are experiencing a paradoxical situation regarding the education and employment of young people. On one hand, 15% drop out of their studies prematurely; on the other, almost half of those who work (48.9%) are overqualified for the job they do, according to the Emancipation Observatory for the second semester of 2025. The data points to two difficulties: there are young people who stop their education early and others who, despite continuing to study, do not find a job suitable for their qualifications, a fact that generates frustration. These are different realities that, together, show the difficulties youth face in completing their education and finding a job that matches the studies they have undertaken.

Only 8% of young people between 16 and 29 years old in the Balearic Islands had been able to emancipate themselves during the second semester of 2025. The figure represents less than half that of the same period the previous year and places the youth emancipation rate of the Islands below the state average of 14.5%. This is according to the Emancipation Observatory corresponding to the second half of 2025, presented this Wednesday by Lucía Siles, representative of the Youth Council of Spain (CJE), and Pau Emili Muñoz, president of the Youth Council of the Balearic Islands (CJIB).

Buying a home of 100 square meters in Formentera exceeds, on average, one million euros. In Santa Eulària des Riu, the same surface area is equivalent to more than 900,000 euros, and in Andratx, to about 854,000. These are the three municipalities that lead the ranking of the most expensive municipalities in Spain, prepared by the real estate portal pisos.com with data from September 2026. The Balearic Islands occupy the first seven places and concentrate 15 of the 25 municipalities in the ranking, 60% of the total.

At the beginning of 2011, I found a note one day under my office door about an event called ‘The State of Malaise’. Added by hand was: “This is it!”. It came from a student, frustrated for some time by the lack of channels for political—and intellectual—expression for his generation. Shortly after, this same young man launched the hashtag #acampapalma, and in no time, Plaza de España became the Plaza of Iceland, in the wake of the 15-M movement.

‘If you don’t have a house, nor the money to build one (...) put a caravan / in the middle of a plot / or expand a small shed / without permission to do so’, sing Ànimos Parrec. The song Veniu a es Pla, has already become an anthem for a land that never stops accumulating transformations on the margins of legality. With these lyrics, Julià Picornell ironizes about the proliferation of irregular dwellings and settlements on rustic land in the Pla de Mallorca.

Illegal settlements on rustic land, linked to the incessant demand for labor and the housing emergency, are putting the public administrations of the Balearic Islands to the test. Although caravans, small houses, and precarious constructions have become common on the outskirts of towns and along rural paths and tracks, no census currently allows us to know how many settlements there are in Mallorca or how many people live in them.

You don't have to be evicted to end up on the street. It is not necessary for a vulture fund to buy your house for you to lose it, it is enough not to be able to pay for it. You don't need the police to remove you from your home, your children can do it. You don't need force, but you do need violence, to leave a pensioner without a home. You don't have to be Maricarmen. You can also be María del Carmen.

There is an old military barracks in Palma that has been waiting for more than two decades to be converted into public housing. It is Son Busquets, an immense state-owned plot where 831 protected homes are currently planned. 20 years of announcements, projects, and discussions between administrations that have not served to make the apartments available to the public. Meanwhile, housing has gone from being a significant problem to becoming a social emergency.

Sharing an apartment with strangers is no longer just an option for young people in the Balearic Islands. 64% of tenants looking for a room in the rental market of the Islands are over 35 years old, according to data from the real estate portal Pisos.com. The profile of those who share housing in the Archipelago thus moves away from the usual pattern of students or young people starting their independent life.

Catalonia is the great anti-example of housing management for Marga Prohens' Government. In this Tuesday's plenary session, the president once again attacked the Generalitat, because she believes that the rent price limitation it applies does not work and, furthermore, restricts the supply available on the market. "You have two masters: Pedro Sánchez, Catalonia and your inferiority complex," she snapped at the Minorcanist Josep Castells when he demanded that she apply the declaration of stressed zones in the Islands. Furthermore, she highlighted that this territory is the community where the most evictions in the State take place, a fact that she attributed to the management of the socialist Salvador Illa. But when looking at the available official figures, these correlations are not so clear. The Islands, where the price limitation is not applied, are the second community with the most evictions according to the number of inhabitants. And although in 2025 fewer rental contracts were signed than in 2023 in Catalonia, in the Balearic Islands, where there is no restriction on prices, they have also decreased. Where there is a difference is in rental prices: while in Catalonia they have been contained, in the Islands they have skyrocketed.

The state agency Casa 47 has put out to tender the drafting of the building project for a development of at least 43 affordable homes in Palma, which will be carried out on a plot of 2,344 square meters of surface area located on Ignasi Ferretjans street, in the North district of the city. The estimated value of the contract for the drafting of the building project is 494,868 euros and bids can be submitted until December 9, as reported by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Agenda in a statement.

Palma's municipal housing plan takes a new step forward. The Palma Governing Board approved this Wednesday the constitution of the Compensation Board for the Strategic Residential Project (PRE) of Son Puigdorfila, an area where the construction of up to 623 homes is planned, 320 of which will have some degree of protection. The agreement allows for progress in the project's processing, which began in March with the final approval of the statutes and the operating bases of the Compensation Board.