canary islands house prices record highs 2026

Canary Islands house prices: record highs as Santa Cruz overtakes Las Palm

Santa Cruz de Tenerife becomes the most expensive capital

House prices have continued to climb during the first quarter of this year in both of the Canary Islands’ capital cities. The increase has been most pronounced in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, which has now cemented its position as the more expensive of the two. However, that comparison only holds between the capitals themselves: the most costly square metre in the entire archipelago is to be found in the Tenerife municipality of Adeje, where it reaches 3,727.9 euros.

Over the first three months of the year, the price per square metre in Tenerife rose by 160.3 euros to 2,355.1 euros, according to data published by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Agenda for municipalities with more than 25,000 inhabitants. In relative terms, this represents a quarter-on-quarter increase of 7.3 per cent, more than double the 3.22 per cent rise recorded in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. There, the price per square metre of built housing now stands at 2,251.4 euros, having added 70.4 euros during the first quarter.

Prices now higher than before the 2008 crash

Never before has the financial challenge of securing a home in the islands been so great. In fact, prices have now surpassed the levels reached before the property bubble burst in 2008, though for different reasons. Today, demand is driving prices up because of the limited size of the housing stock; almost two decades ago, the driver was the high profitability of investing in property assets and banks flooding the market with loans granted with few questions asked.

Over the past 20 years, the price per square metre has risen by 502 euros in the Gran Canaria capital and by 676.3 euros in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. These increases represent relative rises of 28.7 per cent and 40.2 per cent, respectively. Back in the first quarter of 2006, prices were still climbing, eventually reaching their previous peaks of 2,105 euros per square metre in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (first quarter of 2008) and 2,064 euros in Santa Cruz de Tenerife just three months later, on the eve of the financial crash. That event triggered a sudden loss of value in property assets. The recovery was slow, and it has taken the current market pressures across Spain for prices to once again exceed 2,000 euros per square metre. Las Palmas de Gran Canaria crossed that threshold first, in the first quarter of 2025 (2,101 euros), followed shortly after by Santa Cruz de Tenerife in the third quarter of 2025 (2,142 euros).

Adeje tops the list at over 3,700 euros per square metre

It is in Santa Cruz de Tenerife that prices have shown the most resistance to rising, yet it is also the city that has taken the lead and shows a clear tendency to remain on an upward trajectory, at a pace that Las Palmas de Gran Canaria no longer seems to match. Even so, neither capital is the location in the autonomous community where buyers must make the greatest outlay per square metre of built housing. Four of the municipalities included in the ministry’s statistics – those with more than 25,000 inhabitants – now exceed 3,000 euros per square metre. Adeje tops the list at 3,727.9 euros (11.7 per cent more than a year ago), followed by La Oliva at 3,213.7 euros, San Bartolomé de Tirajana at 3,138.9 euros, and Puerto de la Cruz at 3,036.3 euros.

Where housing is most affordable

At the opposite end of the scale, the municipalities where housing is most affordable are Ingenio, at 1,308.5 euros per square metre; Arucas, at 1,392.9 euros; Los Realejos, at 1,454 euros; and Telde, at 1,469.1 euros per square metre.

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