canary islands housing crisis multiple property owners soar

Housing Crisis Deepens as Multiple Property Ownership Soars in Canary Islands

Housing Access Blocked as Multiple Property Ownership Booms

Access to housing for those looking to leave home or escape substandard accommodation remains blocked in the Canary Islands by high prices and a lack of supply. Yet the reality is very different for those who already have several, or many, flats in their name. Multiple property ownership is experiencing a golden age in the archipelago. While the number of owners of a single urban property has risen from almost 600,000 in 2010 to 642,000 in 2025—a slight increase of 7.5%—the total number of individuals owning two or more has changed from 305,000 to 466,000 in the same period, a sharp rise of 52.7%, according to land registry data analysed by Canarias Ahora.

Sharpest Rise Among Owners of Six to Ten Properties

The group of owners that has grown the most is those holding between six and ten urban properties. In 2010 there were 23,000; now there are 43,000, an increase of 86.4%. This is followed by those owning exactly five, which has risen from 15,000 to 26,000, up 79.3%. In third place are those who own four. This group has gained 21,000 holders, rising from almost 29,000 to 50,000, an increment of 75.4%.

The land registry’s methodology clarifies that a ‘holder’ refers to any person (individual or legal entity) who holds any type of right over the entirety or just a part of a property. This includes full or partial ownership, usufruct rights, surface rights, or administrative concessions. The data collects all types of urban properties, not just homes, but also commercial premises or any construction intended for residential or commercial activities.

A Clear Trend Towards Concentration of Assets

The analysis of the last fifteen years shows a clear trend towards the concentration of assets. It is one more pattern that explains the housing crisis battering the Canary Islands with no sign of letting up soon. “The rentier society is growing. People who have more than one property. The question is what they use it for. Whether it’s for tourist lets or for a stable rental income. But yes. The gap that researcher Jaime Palomera talks about is widening,” points out Alejandro Armas, a doctor of Geography from the University of La Laguna.

The expert notes that the accumulation of housing is a problem that countries like Germany already have, “where expropriation or limits on hoarding by large holders is being considered.” The Parliament of the Canary Islands, with the votes of the parties supporting the regional government (Coalición Canaria, Partido Popular, ASG and AHI) plus Vox, closed the door a few months ago to a proposed law from the PSOE to address this issue. CC commented that the initiative ignored measures already launched by the autonomous government, which continue to be insufficient in the face of runaway prices. The PP simply criticised the socialists’ interventionist zeal, even stating that Pedro Sánchez’s (PSOE) housing policy “has been dedicated to protecting squatters.”

Multiple Ownership Begins to Have Concrete Effects

However, multiple ownership is beginning to have tangible effects. Lawyer and spokesperson for Derecho al Techo, Isabel Saavedra, acknowledges that the people who contact her and the collective are “no longer coming due to evictions by private individuals, but due to procedures initiated by large funds with very strange names.” She emphasises that this type of case is increasingly common and does not associate it so much with foreign companies, but with real estate firms dedicated to extracting profitability from the market.

In fact, the Canary Islands were again in 2025 the autonomous community with the highest proportion of corporate involvement in house sales: they accounted for 15% of transactions, according to the latest annual report from the Property Registry. In Euskadi, Navarra, or La Rioja, that percentage does not even reach 6%.

Tenants Face Increasingly Powerful Landlords

“The growth of multi-property owners is not just a statistical figure, it is a very clear signal of how housing is being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. While one part of the population can barely access a home or lives in fear of losing it, another accumulates several properties and uses them as an investment asset,” reflects Pilar Puyi, spokesperson for the Tenants’ Union in Tenerife.

The only group of holders that has not grown is that of owners of more than 50 properties. Their numbers have fallen from 1,191 in 2010 to 1,088 in 2025—a decrease of 8.6%. Holders of 26 to 50 properties have also recorded relative stability in recent years, but have changed from 1,535 to 1,875, an increase of 22%. And excluding owners of a single property, all other owner groups report increases of at least 40%.

“This is completely changing the relationship between tenants and landlords,” asserts Puyi. “For a tenant, it is much more difficult to negotiate or defend their rights against someone who controls several homes and who can impose conditions, raise prices, or apply abusive clauses that are ultimately accepted because there is no alternative,” she adds. “As a tenant and activist for the right to housing, there is a feeling of competing at a disadvantage with investors who buy houses to monetise them, for holiday lets… The underlying problem is that housing is treated as a commodity instead of a right. Market logic dominates. Profitability is prioritised over people having a home,” stresses the union spokesperson.

Post-2008 Crash “Window of Opportunity” for Accumulation

Isidro Martín, the Canary Islands delegate of the Professional Association of Real Estate Experts (APEI), places the start of this accumulation in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crash. “Those years (from 2010 to 2016, he estimates) opened a window of opportunity to buy houses at quite ridiculous prices,” even below €40,000, which was exploited by market players capable of acquiring three or four flats in the same building or taking on developments that had been paralysed.

Martín details that these holders are able to secure an ever-larger slice of the pie because they see rentals as “cash flow tips”: they put one property up for rent, use that income to buy a second, and so on. “It’s a continuous investment cycle where the property acts as a safe-haven asset, like gold and bitcoin, but the fact is that property has always been a refuge,” the expert recalls. The profile of these buyers dedicates their properties “to speculate or to let,” acknowledges Martín.

The APEI delegate in the archipelago highlights that the region acts as a safe haven for investment compared to the instability of other parts of Europe, and states that this attracts foreign holders “like Poles, Germans, or Italians with a fairly high economic capacity.”

Canary Islands Lead in Extreme Property Concentration

The land registry reveals that the percentage of owners with a single property in the Islands is 58%, the highest value in all of Spain. The weight of groups with two, three, four, or five is lower compared to the rest of the country, placing the Canaries at the bottom of the national table. However, those with between six and ten properties or between eleven and 25 already play a significant role. But it is among the kings of hoarding where the region truly stands out.

In no other autonomy do owners of between 26 and 50 properties represent 0.16% of the market, as in the Archipelago. And no other community reaches the 0.098% share of the total held by owners of more than 50 properties, as the Canary Islands does. The rest of the transactions (aside from those of these large holders), Martín specifies, are signed by middle-aged people selling their homes on the outskirts to move to central areas; small business owners using surplus profits from their businesses to acquire and let houses; couples in their thirties looking for their first home; and young people who, backed by inherited wealth from their parents, are buying.

Calls for Structural Measures to Rebalance the Market

Pilar Puyi of the Tenerife Tenants’ Union calls for structural measures so that this portfolio of properties opens up to the entire population. “The most urgent thing is to end speculative accumulation and to ensure housing cannot be bought unless it is to live in. It is also urgent to expropriate vulture funds and make empty homes available. If this power imbalance is not corrected, the trend is already clear: more and more housing in the hands of fewer owners, and it is increasingly difficult for the working class to access it,” she concludes.

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