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Where can you still buy a home in Spain for under €100k in 2022?

As it becomes more difficult to find cheap property in Spanish cities, The Local takes a look at the provincial capitals where you're most likely to find and buy a home for under €100,000.

Where can you still buy a home in Spain for under €100k in 2022?
A 'for sale' sign on a balcony in Madrid. Photo: DOMINIQUE FAGET/AFP

Spain has long been a haven for foreigners looking to buy cheap property, whether it be a holiday home to spend the summer months or somewhere to retire or relocate to entirely. 

While the country may still be much cheaper than many nation across northern Europe, the US, Canada or Australia, prices are going up and if you want to find a bargain – a property under €100,000, that is – you’ll need to know where to search.

If you were looking to buy in Madrid, for example, finding somewhere for under €100,000 might prove difficult.

According to recent data published by Spanish property giants Idealists, homes in the Spanish capital under €100,000 account for a measly 3.9 percent of the total market.

Even for properties costing €200,000 or less, just 30.5 percent of the capital’s viviendas fall into that category.

In Spain’s second city, Barcelona, the number of homes available for €100,000 or less has actually increased ever so slightly in the last year, from 1.6 percent to 1.7 percent in May 2022.

Increasing marginally it may be, that still means that in Barcelona fewer than two in every 100 properties cost €100,000 or less.

Even if you expand the search to €200,000, in Barcelona just 19.4 of properties in May 2022 cost €200,000 or less. 

Spain’s two main cities might not be the best places to find a bargain then, it seems, and it is worth remembering that like in other capital cities across the world, such as London, New York, or Paris, the cheaper properties (in this case, those under €100,000) are often incredibly small, old, poor quality, far from the city centre or publican transport links, or some combination of all of those things.

Tourist favourites

If you’re looking for cheap property in areas already popular with other foreigners, or large international communities, be warned, prices can be steep, depending on where you are.

Note that these figures are for provincial capitals, not the wider province as a whole, and therefore may not be representative of the availability of cheap properties in smaller towns and cities there. They do, however, give us an idea and are good for making comparisons.

In Alicante, for example, the Costa Blanca city famous among foreigners in Spain, 23.2 percent of properties in the province’s capital are on the market for under €100,000.

In Santa Cruz de Tenerife in the Canary Islands, that figure is 20.4 percent, whereas in the next-door city of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, it’s just 14.5 percent.

In Valencia 13.6 percent of properties cost less than €100,000, while in Costa de Sol hotspot Málaga there’s even fewer, with just 7.4 percent of properties.

In Palma de Mallorca, just 1.1 percent of properties available cost €100,000 or less, making the Balearic capital the second city with least cheap housing after the upmarket Basque city of San Sebastián.

The Spanish cities where there are most cheap properties under €100K

So which are the Spanish cities with the highest stock of affordable housing?  Here is a list of the provincial capitals where at least 25 percent of homes are available for less than €100,000, based on Idealista data from May 2022.

Provincial capitals where 40 percent or more of properties on the market are under €100,000.

  1. Huelva (47.5 percent)
  2. Lleida (46.9 percent)
  3. Ávila (46.6 percent)
  4. Jaén (44.8 percent)
  5. Zamora (42.0 percent)
  6. Teruel (41.8 percent)
  7. Ciudad Real (41.2 percent)

Provincial capitals where 30 to 40 percent of properties on the market are under €100,000.

  1. Palencia (38.4 percent)
  2. Cuenca (38.3 percent)
  3. Murcia (37.5 percent)
  4. Almería (36.1 percent)
  5. Cáceres (35.7 percent)
  6. Huesca (35.6 percent)
  7. Valladolid (34.6 percent)
  8. Oviedo (34.3 percent)
  9. Zaragoza (33.7 percent)
  10. León (33.6 percent)
  11. Soria (33.3 percent)
  12. Castellón de la Plana (31.8 percent)
  13. Ourense (30.6 percent)

Provincial capitals where 20-30 percent of properties on the market are under €100,000.

  1. Lugo (29.1 percent)
  2. Badajoz (27.4 percent)
  3. Tarragona (26.7 percent)
  4. Logroño (25.7 percent)
  5. Guadalajara (25.6 percent)
  6. Córdoba (24.6 percent)
  7. Burgos (24.1 percent)
  8. Alicante (23.2 percent)
  9. Santa Cruz, Tenerife (20.4 percent)
  10. Salamanca (20.0 percent)

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PROPERTY

Spain considers banning tourist lets in residential buildings

The Spanish government has announced it's studying the possibility of prohibiting tourist apartments in residential buildings where property owners live.

Spain considers banning tourist lets in residential buildings

The Minister of Housing and Urban Agenda, Isabel Rodríguez, announced this Tuesday that the Government is studying a reform of the Horizontal Property Law in order to allow property owners to prohibit tourist apartments in their residential buildings.

In Spain, each building has what’s known as a community of neighbours, referred to La Comunidad or Comunidad de Vecinos in Spanish, and essentially the Spanish government is considering giving them veto power over tourist apartments in their buildings.

READ ALSO: ‘La comunidad’: What property owners in Spain need to know about homeowners’ associations

The announcement was stated in an interview on Telecinco, in which Rodríguez stated that this move comes as a consequence of recent supreme court rulings on tourist apartments in Oviedo in Asturias and San Sebastián in the Basque Country.

In the rulings, the magistrates concluded that the rental of housing for tourist use is an economic activity, and agreed that communities of owners in two separate buildings could ban tourist rentals in several apartments.  

“It will be the neighbourhood communities that will also be able to participate in these types of decisions, because this phenomenon, which is not exclusive to our country, affects the entire world and the main capitals in Europe,” explained the minister.

READ ALSO – UPDATE: Which cities in Spain have new restrictions on tourist rentals?

Recently, Rodríguez has criticised that the proliferation of tourist apartments causes problems for locals, that it stops them from being able to access decent housing and raises the price of rentals.

She praised the regions which have taken steps to try and put a stop to this and gave the recent example of Barcelona City Council, which announced last Friday that it would eliminate all tourist apartments by the end of 2028.

She believes this move in Barcelona “will benefit citizens who want to live in their city, who do not want it to be a theme park and who prioritise the right to access housing over economic interests”.

Spain’s Horizontal Property Law , which was modified once in 2019, already states that it “requires a favourable vote of three-fifths of the total number of owners who, in turn, represent three-fifths of the participation quotas”. This means that already owners have a big say in whether tourist licences can be granted to apartments in their buildings.

However, the particular wording of the law has been the subject of much legal controversy and judicial interpretation. The reason is because the wording of the law only mentions the possibility for communities to “limit or condition” tourist use, but they do not have the power to “prohibit” since the law does not expressly say so.

Several regions have their own rulings through regional courts, but this new announcement aims to make it universal across the board in Spain and ensure that there’s no room for misinterpretation.

Rodríguez is set to meet this afternoon with the governing board of the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces (FEMP) and the Housing and Tourism Commissions to address this matter and come to a decision. 

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