Construction Sector Reactivates to Tackle Housing Crisis
Gradually, the construction sector is beginning to reactivate in response to the housing crisis affecting the Canary Islands. This slow but steady progress is now evident in the statistics tracking the number of homes that have begun construction across the Archipelago. Throughout 2025, permits were granted to build 5,604 new houses in the Islands. These more than five thousand homes, which began construction last year to address the region’s housing demand, represent the highest annual figure since 2008.
Building Permits Signal a Warming Market
Construction permits serve as an excellent barometer for measuring the temperature of the building sector. These are the official certifications confirming that a new build complies with all formal requirements to begin work. They are, therefore, an essential prerequisite for starting construction and allow for forecasting the number of homes that will be completed in a couple of years. While it is true that these 5,604 permits are still only half of what is needed annually to keep pace with the rate of new household formation, they represent a notable increase compared to previous years.
A Notable 50% Year-on-Year Increase
Specifically, there has been an increase of over 50% compared to the 3,605 homes that began construction just one year earlier, according to data compiled by the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility. This building trend appears to be starting to respond to the determination of public administrations to try to boost an activity that is crucial for ending the housing deficit affecting the Canarian population—an activity that in recent years had been stalled, among other factors, by cumbersome project processing. That is, all the preliminary steps required before concrete mixers can start working.
Streamlining Bureaucracy to Accelerate Building
The Regional Ministry of Public Works, Housing and Mobility has redoubled its efforts since the start of the current legislative term to try to streamline bureaucracy and thus increase the number of homes beginning construction. Among the measures implemented is the simplification of urban planning paperwork, one of the historic major bottlenecks for the industry. Through two decrees approved in the last two years, the timeframes for granting the necessary licences, reports, and authorisations to begin building have been reduced, speeding up the process without removing the necessary controls for such a sensitive activity.
In a sense, the goal is to inject speed into machinery that had become somewhat sluggish after years of paralysis following the property crisis burst. These measures have been praised by the construction industry associations in the Canaries.
From Permits to Completed Homes
Those 5,604 houses that began construction last year will be finished homes within two or three years. This will likewise represent a significant advance, considering that last year the completion of 2,196 homes in the Canaries was certified. That figure was itself already higher than in 2024, when 1,940 properties were finished in the Archipelago.
A Multi-Pronged Strategy for a Complex Crisis
The construction of new private housing to cover resident population demand is only one pillar on which alleviating the current crisis must be based. Increasing the stock of public housing, rescuing closed or abandoned buildings, direct aid for young people to find a home, and guarantees for owners to put their properties up for affordable rent are other measures also being carried out in this legislative term to strengthen the market and help control price increases, which reach double digits annually.
Regarding available public housing, projects that were stalled have been reactivated during the current term, and the construction of various developments on different islands has resumed. Right now, over 3,900 homes have been mobilised and are in different stages—construction, planning, or acquisition—to increase the public stock.
The Long Road Ahead
But there is still much to do. Those 5,604 homes started last year are only half of what is needed to cover new household demand. Therefore, the accelerator must continue to be pressed in the coming years, in both the public and private sectors, to address a situation whose resolution must be viewed not in the short term, but in the medium and long term.
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