The fierce fight for an apartment in the Balearic Islands: anxiety, rising hourly rates, and abusive contracts.

PalmFinding a home in the Balearic Islands has become a fierce race for those looking for affordable properties, whether buying or renting. Having to be the first to visit, missing out on a chance because someone else has offered a higher price, and having to make a decision immediately to avoid seeing a house they can afford slip away are some of the situations faced by those on the hunt for a place to stay. So, it's no longer just about finding a home; you also have to deal with the anxiety of knowing that if you come in second, you probably won't get it.

The real estate website Idealista provides two insights that help put the situation into perspective. On the one hand, 65 people compete in Palma for each room for rent—last year it reached 91—while the national average is 22 interested parties. On the other hand, every time a rental apartment is advertised in Inca, 87 families must compete to live there. In Palma, 64 families are interested in each rental property – the regional average is 37.

Regarding purchasing, at the beginning of the year there were 30,000 families competing to acquire a home in the Balearic Islands, according to data from the Business Association of Real Estate Developers of the Balearic Islands (Proinba).

"If I saw an apartment that was halfway decent, I had to call several times. If it wasn't the first time, they'd lose it because they showed it in order of list and took it first," Lluc explains about the process of buying his home. With a full-time job, things became even more complicated because "you couldn't choose viewing times." "You had to adapt completely to them," he says. On the other hand, once he visited an apartment, he didn't have much time to think. "Once I visited one at 4 p.m., called at 8 p.m. to say I wanted it, and it was already sold," he continues. In fact, to be able to buy the home where he lives, he paid the deposit as soon as he visited it.

Another obstacle Lluc encountered during the purchasing process was that some real estate agencies were taking advantage of the competition to raise their prices. "The first apartment I saw was being offered for 210,000 euros, and when I visited it, they told me there was already an offer for 230,000. They gave me the weekend to decide if I wanted to improve the offer. This happened to me three times," he explains. Furthermore, "just to be able to make the offer, you had to pay 1% of the apartment's value. Otherwise, they wouldn't even consider you." Paying thousands of euros without any guarantee that the property would ultimately be acquired, because there could always be an even higher offer.

"The market has reversed. Before, the one who set the conditions for a viewing was the client. But now the buyer is no longer the strong party in that relationship, but the weak one," notes Alfonso Rodríguez, president of the Balearic Association of Consumers and Users (Consubal). Regarding price changes, the situation is complicated if the buyer hasn't yet signed a contract. "Normally, people accept the conditions or continue looking," he adds. Rodríguez gives an example that was unthinkable a few years ago of how tough the competition is: "A 70-square-meter apartment in a working-class neighborhood of Palma sold for €400,000 in less than five days," he notes.

Measures that don't work

The president of Consubal regrets that the Catalan government's housing measures "aren't yielding results." "There are a lot of messages in the media, but we still have a serious problem. Social housing is not a priority for them," he laments, adding that "between 3,000 and 4,000 homes should enter the market" to balance supply and demand. "Construction is important to them, but the market should set the price," he adds.

Lluc acknowledges that the situation he went through trying to find an apartment affected his mental health. "It generated a lot of anxiety for me to have to be first, and I had to be 100% available for work. Also, during the months I was looking, I saw prices rising, and I didn't have any more money for the purchase," he explains.

In the case of Sofi, a young woman who searched for a rental apartment, she ended up giving up on real estate platforms because the lower-priced apartments were flying off the shelves and, furthermore, were "in very poor condition." "I had to share a flat, but I kept looking for options to go it alone. It was desperate because it seemed like there was no way around it. Every time I was interested in an apartment and shouted, it was rented," she says. Finally, when Sofi had given up looking, she found a home thanks to word of mouth and a landlord who preferred to earn less and have a reliable tenant.

Natalia Bueno, former president of the Association of Real Estate Agents (API), points out that many people looking for housing sink "into despair." "There's a lot of demand. For example, I posted a rental in Port d'Alcúdia for 770 euros per month and there were 180 contacts," she explains. However, certain conditions must then be met, such as the rental price not representing more than 40% of income if there is no guarantor. Furthermore, the Catalan government requires five years of residency for homes in the Lloguer Segur program, an initiative that has only secured around fifty homes since its launch in October 2024. The government estimated that between 2,000 and 3,000 apartments would be put on the market in the first phase.

"With so much demand, you have to do a kind of casting among people who meet the conditions," continues Bueno, who acknowledges that situations that "border on humiliation" arise. The expert asserts that, "as long as there is this demographic pressure and people with greater purchasing power arrive, prices will rise even more, and people will continue to compete for homes that are not so expensive."

Alfonso Rodríguez says he's seen unfair conditions, especially in the case of rentals, because there will always be someone willing to accept them. "A foreign woman agreed to rent a room for 450 euros a month. Her granddaughter came to visit her and demanded another 200 euros so she could be with her," he recalls. "We encounter contracts where the tenant has all the obligations and the owner assumes none, and there are often penalties for just about anything," continues the president of Consubal, also emphasizing that many people rent "without any contract or receipt for what they pay." He reiterates that the problem is that "there is no affordable housing, neither for rent nor for purchase." "There are many abuses," he concludes.