The death of Maricarmen has struck the housing encampment in Palma, which this Wednesday received the news in the middle of an assembly at the Plaça d'Espanya. In a statement released after learning of her death, the participants expressed their "anger and pain" and directly accused those responsible for the eviction and the administrations of not having prevented the outcome. "Her death would have been easy to prevent, but they did not want to. Because Maricarmen has not died. Maricarmen has been murdered," the encampment asserts in the statement.

The new housing measures approved this Tuesday by the Spanish government have not convinced the Tenants' Union of Mallorca, the Platform for People Affected by Mortgages (PAH), or the people maintaining the housing encampment at the Plaça d'Espanya in Palma. The three organizations acknowledge that the measures may provide some relief for those affected, but they consider them insufficient to solve the underlying problem.

The UIB student residence is increasingly overwhelmed. “There are more than 300 people on the waiting list. The pressure is getting worse every time. Housing is very complicated,” admits the Vice-Rector for Innovation and Digital Transformation at the UIB, Loren Carrasco. The residence has 101 places and practically all of them are occupied each academic year by students who already live there. This year, 85 students have renewed their place. The pressure on the facility has intensified in recent years: in the 2022-23 academic year there were 185 students on the waiting list, a figure that increased to 215 at the beginning of the 2024-25 academic year and now exceeds 300 people.

The Islands are one of the territories of the State with one of the most strained housing markets. For this reason, the two decree laws that the PSOE and Sumar have agreed upon this Tuesday at the Council of Ministers have also shaken the Balearic political board. While the left has applauded the initiative, which involves banning evictions of vulnerable people until 2030 and extending rental contracts by two years, the PP has described the measure as "frivolity" and "posturing," and Vox has lashed out at the left for engaging, in its view, in electoralism.

The Department of Education and the Council of Formentera want to build about forty rental homes intended for teaching staff displaced to the island. The two administrations signed a protocol to promote the project, which aims to provide a response to one of the main obstacles to covering and retaining teachers on the island, who mostly come from outside: the difficulty of finding affordable and stable housing. The future apartments would be located on land that the Council will cede in Es Pujols. The project is still in an initial phase. The administrations must specify the accommodation needs, the location, and the financing formulas. In addition, a technical commission will be created that will have up to twelve months to prepare a report with the diagnosis of needs and a proposal for action. Work is also being done with the Council of Ibiza to activate a similar project.

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.

"Hello, I have fallen in love with your home. If one day you decide to sell or rent it, please contact me. Have a good day!". There is no logo. Nor the name of a company. Nor a business card. Just a small piece of paper, apparently handwritten, with this message, a name (María) and a phone number. These days, the note has appeared in the mailboxes of several homes in El Molinar, one of Palma's most sought-after neighborhoods. Everything suggests that whoever left it is a person who has fallen in love with a specific house and is trying their luck in case the owner decides to sell it one day. But a simple phone call reveals a very different reality.

The PP's decision to allow companies and investment funds to buy housing at a regulated price is the latest example of the change in housing policy model in the Balearic Islands, driven by Marga Prohens's government, with political role models like Isabel Díaz Ayuso's Community of Madrid. The Popular Party has opted to increase supply and private initiative over protected housing, a strategy that the left and experts consulted by ARA Balears have criticized.

The Palma City Council has granted the license to begin the construction of 87 homes that will be destined for rent at limited prices on Bisbe Arnau Albertí street in the Camp Redó neighborhood. The deputy mayor and councilor for Urban Planning, Housing, and Strategic Projects, Óscar Fidalgo, has indicated that the Urban Planning Management has adopted this measure, which represents a new step in the housing shock plan designed by the local corporation, with which it intended to build around 1,000 homes.

Palma City Council's plenary session has approved modifying the General Plan of 2023 with the aim of making better use of consolidated urban land and facilitating the construction of more homes in the city. The initiative, promoted by Vox and approved with the favorable votes of this group and the PP, will allow for the harmonization of building heights and the modification of urban planning indices that are considered "obsolete". The proposal was approved this Tuesday during the second session of the state of the city debate and also urges the government team to urgently transform the Urban Planning Management into an autonomous body.

The tension between the caravan dwellers of Son Hugo and the Palma City Council continues to rise. The residents of the area report feeling "harassed" by Cort and by police actions, while they claim that living in caravans is not a choice, but the only possible alternative given the runaway increase in housing costs in Mallorca.

Manacor is the first municipality in the Balearic Islands to approve and process a formal petition to the Government for the municipality to be declared a tense residential market area, which will allow for the application of “an individualized reference index per dwelling, taking into account factors such as surface area, location, year of construction, state of conservation, or whether it has an elevator or energy certificate”, among others, explains the municipal delegate for Urban Planning, Núria Hinojosa, which in turn will serve to “detect and correct abusive cases”.

The spokesperson for the Platform of Mortgage Affected People (PAH), Àngela Pons, has lashed out at the decision of the Palma City Council (PP with the support of Vox) to reject neighborhood requests to reverse the transfer of endowment plots to development companies for housing construction. Pons has censured that public land is being given away to put homes on sale for 270,000 euros or rental flats for 1,400 euros. "They are not limited prices nor reasonable rents," she criticized, before concluding: "They are giving away municipal land to rent flats for 1,400 euros".

Last March, the Ministry of the Water Cycle and the Sea signed the authorization to carry out the demolition of Pedro J. Ramírez's pool in Costa de los Pinos, after a long legal battle since 2004. The case was well known by its owner (now Agatha Ruiz de la Prada), but in the Balearic Islands there are dozens of other pools in public maritime-terrestrial domain. And not only that: hotels, restaurants, and –of course– villas have also been built, some directly on the beach. All these uses are prohibited because the public domain is a strip that occupies the first meters of the coast and extends as far as a beach, dune system, or wetland reaches. Some of these constructions obtained temporary concessions in the past, but most have already expired. In total, it is estimated that there are more than 2,000 irregular constructions, many of which with demolition orders. The lack of resources from the State Coastal Demarcation has allowed cement to illegally occupy the front line for decades. One of the most striking cases is that of Bungalow, in Palma, a restaurant that has never even had a concession and continues to operate despite demolition orders.

The Palma City Council has definitively approved the statutes and bases of the compensation board for the Son Ximelis Strategic Residential Project, a situation that opens the way to the urbanization of 143,649 square meters, where 1,080 homes can be built, according to municipal data. Of the total, 530 homes will have some type of public protection. The project had initial approval, but final approval was necessary to step on the accelerator.

Building permits issued in the Balearic Islands increased by 27.9% in 2025 compared to 2024, a growth driven, in part, by the extraordinary legalizations of buildings on rural land approved by the Balearic Government, as the Official College of Architects of the Balearic Islands pointed out this Tuesday. In this regard, during the presentation of the Housing Observatory held this Tuesday at a press conference, experts indicated that without the effect of the extraordinary legalizations, the increase would have been 5.7%, meaning there would have been 22.2% fewer projects. They explained that this increase is linked to the extraordinary regularization processes for buildings on rural land provided for in Decree Law 3/2024 and Law 7/2024, concerning housing and administrative simplification, respectively.

Home sales in the Balearic Islands grew by 5% year-on-year in 2015, reaching 14,529 units, according to data published this Friday by the National Statistics Institute (INE). This marks a return to positive growth rates, with a total of 1,104 transactions recorded in December. These sales represent the fourth-highest figure for the month in the region's recorded history. Of the total, 11,522 were market-rate homes; 3,303 were market-rate homes; and 230 were subsidized housing. Compared to the previous month, home sales in the Islands fell by 2.2%.

The Esporles Town Council has announced that it will be the first municipality to offer a new residential model, with eight supervised living places for seniors. This model is designed for people with a higher level of autonomy than required by the traditional residential model, which is intended for more advanced dependency, the Council explained in a statement. The new facility aims to offer an alternative adapted to current needs, promoting personal autonomy and quality of life. According to Mayor Josep Ferrà, with the opening of these eight supervised living places, Esporles will have, for the first time and after many years of effort, its first residential service in the municipality, within the framework of the 2026-2030 Social and Healthcare Infrastructure Plan. "These first eight places are just the beginning; in the coming years we will continue working to expand the offering and meet the needs of our seniors," said Ferrà. In the coming months, the City Council and the Regional Ministry of Families, Social Welfare, and Dependency Care will work together to define the terms of the future agreement, finalize the proposal for the residential space, and formalize the agreement that will allow the service to begin. The Councilor for Social Services, Maria Roig, stated that "the aim is for it to happen as soon as possible, and, if it depends on the City Council, for it to be a reality this year, 2026, since the facilities are already built."

Vicenç Vidal, the MÉS deputy for Mallorca and Més for Menorca, affiliated with the Sumar plurinational group, has submitted a bill to Congress to limit home purchases by individuals. He explained this on Friday at a press conference at the MÉS headquarters in Palma, where he warned that 24,000 rental contracts will expire this year, affecting approximately 69,000 people in the Balearic Islands. "In January, a historic record was broken: the price per square meter is over €5,000 in the Balearic Islands," Vidal emphasized, accusing the Balearic Islands' president, Marga Prohens, and the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, of "failing to address this scandal." The initiative proposed by the deputy modifies Article 10 of the Housing Law to limit purchases to individuals and prohibit vulture funds from operating in the market.