Housing has been a hot topic throughout Spain, but have you ever heard of the “it ‘s become unlivable” protest? This is a phrase you can often heard from locals of Malaga province. The housing topic is even more discussed about in Malaga due to the constant rising of rental and buying prices. Additionally, the topic of the province increasing their use of properties as tourist accommodations generates many opinions.
Since february 2024, Malaga lead the list of spanish provinces with the most tourists accommodations available. In comparison to last year, the amount of registered tourists units has surged up to 16% making a total of 41,038. The National Institute of Statistics shares that the percentage of homes designated purely for tourist in Malaga is 4.12%. Malaga is not the only province with this housing issue, it is a nationwide concern. All across Spain, number of tourism accommodations has a 9.2% increase from february 2023. However, the way that instead of maintaining and lowering prices, Malaga just keeps on increasing it is quite concerning.
Andalusia increase of tourist accommodations
Andalusia, the autonomous community that Malaga is part of, is also the leader region with high increases. With 82,454 tourist homes, Andalucia now accounts for 23% of Spain’s total tourist accommodations. Right next to Andalucia comes the Valencian community with 59,413 properties, which is a 19% increase within a year. Additionally, Catalonia also saw a high increase of 15% making them have 52,598 units. The crazy thing about Malaga is that La Merced area has 68,91% of their properties used for tourism and the remaining for businesses and living. That is an insanely high amount and sadly the historic center of Malaga is slowly nearing that percentage with a current of 42.68%.
Overall, Costa del Sol is seeing this increase of housing units being used for tourism only. Within one year, Marbella went from having 5,925 tourist homes to 6,994 which result to a 18% increase. Since Malaga keeps on attracting tourists, housing shall locally remain a heated topic of discussion.