Mallorca now officially has a Tenants' Union. The new collective, which was presented this Saturday at CineCiutat in Palma, is born with the will to articulate a collective response to a housing crisis that has been drowning thousands of island residents for years. The event brought together dozens of people linked to social movements and the world of housing in a call marked by criticism of real estate speculation, the constant increase in rents, and the effects of touristification.

Between 2,000 and 3,000 homes: this was the figure of houses that the Lloguer Segur program was to provide solely in a first phase in the Balearic Islands, according to the Minister of Housing, Territory and Mobility, José Luis Mateo. The results at the end of April 2026 confirm the failure of this measure: the program has 76 homes in the Islands, a figure that, on average, represents 1.13 homes per municipality, 1,924 fewer apartments than the minimum of 2,000 that Mateo assured would be available.

Every time a rental contract ends and needs to be renewed, tenants face a possible price increase. In the Balearic Islands, due to the context of constant demand increase, this rise can be significant. After the fall of the royal decree-law that established an automatic extension of contracts ending in 2026 and 2027, up to 40,000 tenants in the Islands (according to data from the Ministry of Social Rights and Consumer Affairs) may once again be faced with this situation. However, the Balearic Government will not take any alternative measures to compensate these residents.

“It is not a cry of despair, we have time, but we cannot find an apartment to rent in Porreres and we do not want to have to move to another town”. The housing crisis in Mallorca is reaching Pla little by little and it has a face and eyes, and in Porreres there is an example. A single-parent family from Porreres, made up of a mother and daughter, has turned what should have been a conventional advertisement looking for a rental apartment into an original protest publication through which they have wanted to make visible the reality of many families and also young people who find themselves with an increasingly inaccessible real estate market throughout Mallorca, and Pla is no exception.

New real estate speculation scandal in the Balearic Islands. A 30-square-meter cottage is rented for 800 euros per month in Sant Joan de Labritja (Eivissa) and the advertiser warns potential interested parties: "The price is only for the winter season, when summer begins the price will change".

Ibiza and Calvià remain among the ten municipalities with the highest rental prices in Spain, with rents exceeding €22 per square meter. This is according to the report. Rental housing in Spain in the year 2025According to the study prepared by the real estate portal Fotocasa, Ibiza ranks second in Spain, with an average price of €23.34/m², surpassed only by Esplugues de Llobregat, which leads the ranking at €25.53/m². Calvià comes in fourth, with an average price of €22.17/m², while Barcelona is just ahead of Ibiza, at €23.30/m². The report also analyzes price trends by province and places the Balearic Islands as the fourth most expensive in Spain, with an average of €18.60 per square meter, representing a year-on-year increase of 7.2%. Only Barcelona (€21.90/m²), Madrid (€20.66/m²), and Gipuzkoa (€19.02/m²) have higher prices. Fotocasa notes that the rental market closed 2025 with a scenario marked by "very high prices," concentrated mainly in areas with strong demand, such as Catalonia, the Community of Madrid, the Balearic Islands, the Basque Country, and the Canary Islands. In this regard, the portal's Director of Studies and spokesperson, María Matos, explains that "the increase in rental prices is especially concentrated in areas with greater demographic and economic pressure, where the creation of new housing stock is unable to absorb existing demand." This structural lack of supply, she adds, causes prices to remain persistently high, even in contexts of lower economic growth. Matos also points out that, although the rate of price growth has moderated in some areas, rents remain at "peak levels," which demonstrates that "the adjustment is not due to a real market relaxation, but rather to the economic limitations of households in affording increasingly higher rents."

The Renewal of rental agreements at market prices will skyrocket in the Balearic Islands The income gap favoring landlords over tenants will widen. The Balearic Islands will be the autonomous community where the income difference between landlords and tenants will increase the most: an average of 5,667 euros, which will mean that landlords' income will rise to 66,385 euros, according to a report by the Ministry of Social Rights, Consumer Affairs and Agenda 2030 released by Europa Press. Along with the Balearic Islands, but at a considerable distance, Ceuta leads the increases, with an average rise of 3,495 euros in the income gap; followed by the Valencian Community, with 3,009 euros; the Canary Islands, with 2,653 euros more; Cantabria, with another 2,610 euros; and the Community of Madrid, with another 2,406 euros. Overall, if contracts expiring in 2026 and 2027 are renewed at market prices, the income gap between landlords and tenants affected by the renewal would increase by an average of €2,216 across Spain, raising the average rent for those landlords to €546. The data in the Consum report was compiled from contracts signed in 2021 and 2022 that would expire five years later, in addition to the increase in rental prices during this period according to Idealista. The report excludes data from the Basque Country and Navarre, as they are autonomous communities with special tax regimes, as well as data from Catalonia, in order to include areas of high demand that encompass 80% of the population.

The declaration of a "stressed zone," a measure provided for in the state Housing Law that allows for limitations on rental prices, has begun to bear fruit in municipalities like Barcelona, ​​where, according to official data, the average price of new contracts fell by 6.4%. According to data from the Catalan Land Institute (Incasol), average rental prices in Catalan municipalities have decreased by nearly 5%. Given that the housing situation in the Balearic Islands is worse than in most of Spain, is there any objective reason not to apply this measure, in such an extremely serious situation?

At least six municipalities in the Balearic Islands – Maó, Ciutadella, Esporles, Santa Maria, Pollença, and Algaida – have asked the regional government to apply the national regulations that allow them to be declared a "stressed area" and automatically limit rental prices when contracts are renewed. The regional government confirmed to ARABalears that "these requests will be resolved shortly, and in principle, all will be denied." "We believe that doing so would not improve their situation," explained the Director General of Housing, José Francisco Reynés. "All levels of government must do everything within their power to improve the lives of citizens, and we will, but there is no guarantee that limiting prices will be beneficial," reiterated the top housing official in the regional government. The PSIB even brought to the Balearic Parliament the possibility that municipalities could request this designation directly from the central government if they could demonstrate that they met the emergency conditions required by law, but the conservative majority of the PP and Vox voted against the proposal. Therefore, only the central government can authorize the measure right now. According to the director general, once the declaration of a "stressed zone" was applied, "in Barcelona, there are 444 people applying for an apartment within the first 10 days of it becoming available on the rental market." "In the Balearic Islands, we have an average of 129 people, which shows that the figures support our opinion and do not recommend opting for this approach at the moment," he explained to ARABalears. The municipalities declared "stressed zones" are mainly located in Catalonia, the Basque Country, and Navarre. There is only one exception: autonomous communities governed by the People's Party (PP). This is the case in A Coruña, where its mayor, Inés Rey, asked for "institutional loyalty" from the Xunta (Galician regional government) when implementing the measures, since despite giving it the green light, the local government had expressed its reservations.

The municipalities of the Tramuntana mountain range have the highest incomes in the Balearic Islands. According to the latest data from the Tax Agency, Esporles is the municipality with more than 1,000 inhabitants with the highest average gross income in the archipelago: 47,908 euros per year per tax return. It is closely followed by Valldemossa, with 46,046 euros, a municipality that had led this ranking in recent years and which this year occupies the second position.

The National Police have detected 11 substandard shanty towns in Manacor. They discovered that the owner of the land where these shacks were built charged large amounts of rent to the residents. National Police officers in Manacor conducted a joint inspection with the Housing Inspection Service of the Balearic Islands Government and the Ministry of Housing, Territory, and Mobility.

"With this program, we want to break the barrier that prevents many owners of empty apartments who, as real estate agents tell us, prefer to keep their homes empty for fear of non-payment, damage, or bad experiences." These were the words of Prime Minister Marga Prohens on October 21, 2024, when she presented one of the Executive's flagship housing measures: the Secure Rental Program. Although the acquisition of apartments began in November, the results today do not show that there are "many owners" in the circumstances detailed by Prohens: after eight months of the program's activity, the initiative only has 27 apartments, 25 in Mallorca, 2 in Menorca, and towards Ibiza and Formentera.

The Catalan government has reiterated its "outright" rejection of the Spanish government's authorization of the tourist rental of private recreational boats for three months of the year and is studying "all legal and administrative avenues" to prevent its implementation in the Balearic Islands.

Manacor is the most affordable municipality to rent a home in the Balearic Islands, with an average price of €13.5 per square meter, according to the June 2025 price report prepared by Idealista. According to the study, this figure is 33% lower than the average rental price in the archipelago, which stands at €20.2 per square meter.