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.

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.

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.

His name was Valentín Cabrera Zaracho, he was 48 years old and was from Paraguay. He worked in construction from Monday to Friday and as a security guard on weekends. He was "very happy" because he had been able to legalize his status in the country during the Spanish government's recent regularization; he planned to bring his son to live with him in Ibiza. Death, in the form of a fire, caught him in his makeshift dwelling on the Casa Lola estate, in the municipality of Sant Josep de sa Talaia, on Sunday, September 27, past 7 in the morning. With burns on 90% of his body, still conscious and suffering from extreme pain, he was evacuated by ambulance. He died at Can Misses the same day at 5 in the afternoon.

Thousands of people marched through the center of Palma this Saturday to demand the right to housing. The National Police estimated an attendance of about 3,000 people, while the organizing entities put the figure at around 10,000. For nearly two hours, house keys jingled among the protesters, and chants such as "Get landlords out of our neighborhoods," "Neither people without homes nor homes without people," and "Long live the working class struggle" accompanied a march that passed through some of the most central and expensive streets in the city.

The Platform for Decent Housing has announced through messaging channels that it is preparing demonstrations this Saturday in front of the town halls of Maó and Ciutadella in defense of the right to housing following the double state decree announced after the eviction of Maricarmen.

Belkacem Bouchouala Azirar attends to a woman who wants to charge her mobile phone while a couple has just entered to pick up a package. In just over two minutes, the shop, located on Avinguda del Torrent in Manacor, suddenly fills up. It is hot inside and there is only one ceiling fan to try to combat the humidity. "Do you think that, if I earned all that money they say, I would work every day in an internet cafe?", he reflects.

In Frankfurt, people earn more than double what they do in Palma, but buying a square meter in the center only costs 24% more. In Amsterdam, salaries are 128% higher than in the Balearic capital, while housing is 61% more expensive. And in Brussels, the difference is even more striking: salaries exceed those of Palma by 59%, even though the square meter in the center is 27% cheaper.

Ferran Portella is a tenured professor of Economics at the UIB, and he analyzes for ARA Balears the existing dysfunction between the price per square meter and the salaries of the islanders. He explains how the housing crisis has changed citizens' perception and tolerance towards tourism excesses.

This summer I noticed that young people go to the sea with a chair. And I'm not referring to young people who have ceased to be young, but to very young people. Some carry a deck chair, but most, a folding chair. You see them with the chair, but also with the umbrella, a large cooler, a basket with the picnic, lunch boxes and with clothes hanging from the umbrella. They set up on the rocks or on the beach as if they were at home. I like the attitude.

The Government tightens the requirements to access the new public housing it is promoting in the Balearic Islands. The 323 Official Protection Housing units (HPO) that the Balearic Institute of Housing (Ibavi) will build next to the Velòdrom Illes Balears in Palma will require proof of a minimum of 15 years of legal residence in the Islands to be eligible. The development was already announced on March 30, and this Monday the Government and the Consell de Mallorca formalized the free transfer of the land.

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.

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.”