The Balearic Islands are the autonomous community with the largest difference between the price of protected housing and that of second-hand free housing. According to the latest bulletin from the Observatory of Housing and Land, published this Wednesday by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Agenda and corresponding to the first quarter of 2026, the average value of protected housing is 70.1% lower than that of used free housing, the highest percentage in the entire State.

New song against tourist overcrowding, land exploitation, the Balearic economic model, and real estate speculation. Pepet i Marieta have released Ses platges seran sempre nostres, a Mediterranean roots jota that reflects on some of the consequences of tourist overcrowding in Mallorca and the gentrification affecting neighborhoods and municipalities in the Balearic Islands. The song arrives at a time when the debate on the tourism model occupies a central space in Balearic current affairs, coinciding with the call for the 'Mallorca al límit!' demonstration, scheduled for this Sunday in Palma to denounce the effects of tourist saturation on the island.

The Government will open this Friday, July 17, the period for young residents of the Balearic Islands to apply for aid of 10,000 euros to buy their first home. The call is aimed at people up to 40 years old with a minimum of five years of residence in the Balearic Islands and for homes with a maximum price of 382,000 euros. The aid will also cover purchases formalized from January 1, 2026.

MÉS per Palma denounces that the Partit Popular government in Cort has decided to open the door to companies and investment funds being able to buy subsidized housing. This decision, in their opinion, turns protected housing into "a new business for large speculators and directly harms the citizens of Palma". As they detailed at a press conference, until now, this subsidized housing was reserved for families who needed a home to live in.

A resident of sa Pobla denounces that she cannot recover her grandmother's house, because, according to her, the man who was the elderly woman's caregiver continues to live there after her death. The family states that they have initiated legal proceedings to recover the property, as they need it for their mother, who has been recognized with a dependency of grade III and suffers from a neurodegenerative disease. "We filed the necessity claim in October 2025, because my mother needs this house and, almost a year later, we still have no response," assures the complainant. The Sa Pobla City Council has declined to provide information on this case to ARA Balears, citing the obligation to preserve the confidentiality of people attended by social services.

The Civil Society Forum presented a document this Wednesday to define the future economic model of the Balearic Islands. The text, which will be debated at the congress on November 13, advocates for a reduction in the weight of tourism in the Balearic economy and proposes measures to favor productive diversification, including the creation of a tax on large fortunes that, according to the Forum's own calculations, could raise up to 325 million euros annually.

Inca is the cheapest municipality in the Balearic Islands to rent a home, with an average price of 12.4 euros per square meter per month, according to a study published by the real estate portal Idealista.

Construction continues to increase in Mallorca, according to data provided by the College of Surveyors and Technical Architects of Mallorca, which has already approved 1,296 new homes on the island during the first half of the year, a 28.7% increase compared to 2025. These are the highest figures in the last five years and are expected to continue growing.

In an Ibiza where access to housing has become one of the main social emergencies, with runaway rents, inaccessible purchases and a growing number of residents forced to share flats and live in precarious conditions, the luxury real estate market is moving figures that seem from another reality. In this context, the real estate agency John Taylor has put two new properties in Mallorca on sale for a combined value of 57 million euros: an amount with which, in many municipalities on the island, an entire housing development or an entire neighborhood could be acquired or built.

In March 2022, the Servera family, linked to the Drac de Portocristo caves, put the S'Hort des Correu estate, on the outskirts of Manacor, up for sale. This definitively ended a century-old relationship between the space and the town, and with one of the most curious myths of Sant Joan's night. Around those dates, more than four years ago, the Llull family, the last caretakers of the house, had already left El Correu three years prior, shortly before the pandemic. And with them, the tradition of the magic vimer, the tree capable of curing hernias, had disappeared, once a year, for children who passed naked through its branches at sunrise on the shortest night, always at 6:20 AM.

Diego is 34 years old, has a mortgage he took out when he earned 900 euros, and an opinion that divides groups of friends and colleagues: if his partner lives in his apartment, she pays. He explains it frankly: “I only have 90 square meters to speculate with, and I have to pay for them my whole life. Everyone speculates with me.”

The housing crisis has returned to the streets this Sunday in Palma. Around a hundred people have gathered to denounce the situation of families living under threat of eviction and to protest against what the Platform of People Affected by Mortgages of Mallorca considers a "social cleansing".

Various groups in defense of the right to housing have called for a rally this Sunday, June 21, at 12 p.m., in Plaça d’Espanya in Palma to denounce the housing situation in the Balearic Islands and protest against evictions carried out by administrations without offering residential alternatives.

To buy a 100-square-meter home in Palma, you need a net monthly salary of 3,477 euros. This figure places the Balearic capital as the fifth city in Spain where more income is needed to access a flat through a mortgage and, once again, highlights the growing gap between the real estate market and the salaries of the resident population.

The new fiscal measures of the Balearic Government regarding housing have now come into effect after the publication of the law in the BOIB. The Executive argues that the package should facilitate access to the purchase of the first home and encourage some rents to stop rising. The measure, however, arrives in a market where the main problem remains the starting price of flats and rents.

Via Menorca kicked off the 'N'estam fartes' campaign this past Saturday with a rally in front of the Consell Insular de Menorca. According to GOB Menorca, around 1,200 people gathered in the square to express their discontent with the island's direction and to demand measures regarding the housing crisis, tourist pressure, water management, and the worsening living conditions.

The Urban Planning Department of the Palma City Council has authorized the license for the construction of 80 limited-price rental homes in the Son Ferragut neighborhood, specifically on plot number 6 of Isabel de Villena street.

A few days ago, the president of the employers' association of real estate developers in the Balearic Islands recommended that young people start saving 300 euros a month to be able to access, in five years, the thousands of limited-price homes that are planned to be built in Palma. The news, at first glance, even seems hopeful. Finally, a residential solution could begin to open up for part of the resident population. And it is probably true that many of these developments will be necessary. It is also true that without formulas like limited-price housing, a significant portion of residents could no longer aspire today to access housing in the current market. But behind this promise there is a question that is hard to ignore: what will happen during these five years? And, above all: who will build these homes?

A new call to fill Palma

The discontent against tourist overcrowding will return to the streets this summer. The platform Menys Turisme, Més Vida (Less Tourism, More Life) has called a new large demonstration in Palma for July 26 at 7:00 PM with the aim of repeating the massive mobilizations of recent years and placing the tourism model back at the center of political and social debate.

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