Mallorca & Ibiza: Overtourism and the Housing Crisis — Ten Years Later

I came to Mallorca for love

I came unexpectedly from Ibiza to Mallorca in March 2016. I had only recently arrived in Ibiza and my plans were different, but life changed their direction. Mallorca immediately surprised me: Palma offered the infrastructure of a medium-sized city, while the island still contained extraordinary Mediterranean landscapes, villages and corners with very different identities.

The tourism season was visible then, just as it was in Ibiza. More than ten years later my perception has changed because the island has changed. Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza and Formentera now face a serious social problem: access to housing.

The pressure is real; the explanation is not simple

Mass tourism, holiday rentals, foreign demand, limited land, slow planning, construction costs, wages and population growth all enter the debate. Treating one sector or one group as the sole cause may be emotionally satisfying, but it does not produce housing.

The latest API Balears report helps to measure the scale of the change. The islands have 1,259,545 residents and 468,984 households; 21.8% of the population is foreign. Residential prices reached €4,173 per square metre in the first quarter of 2026, 10.3% higher than a year earlier. Foreign buyers accounted for 28.9% of purchases during the quarter — a significant share, but far from the whole market.

Governments of different political colours have faced the same structural problem. Regulation and enforcement matter, but so do long-term housing supply, transport, public services and the relationship between local salaries and the cost of living.

Tourism sustains the islands — and also changes them

The pandemic revealed how dependent the Balearic economy remains on visitors. When travel stopped, work disappeared across the islands. That reality does not cancel the legitimate debate about overcrowding, wages, resources or who receives the greatest share of tourism’s value. Both things can be true at the same time.

Older owners sometimes tell me that they bought their homes while working in hotels during the 1970s. For a waiter or seasonal employee today, repeating that path is almost unimaginable. This difference is more revealing than any slogan.

Traditional shops have also disappeared, but not every closure can be attributed to a hotel or a holiday rental. Shopping habits, online commerce, demographics and the transformation of town centres have changed daily life everywhere. Mallorca is not frozen in the year we first loved it.

What I see as an estate agent

In most instructions, the owner arrives with a price already in mind, even when it is well above comparable evidence. When I explain that the figure is outside the market, the answer is often the same: there is no hurry to sell. Agents do not unilaterally invent every asking price; we work inside a market shaped by owners, buyers, credit, scarcity and expectations.

That does not absolve our profession of responsibility. We must price honestly, refuse misleading claims, respect the rules and understand that a home is not merely an asset. As a person and as a real estate agent, I cannot remain outside a housing crisis that affects the places where I live and work.

A discussion that needs a longer horizon

It is no consolation to say that the housing problem is global. In Mallorca and Ibiza there are employed people who cannot rent even a room, while younger residents see ownership move further away each year.

The islands need a credible plan for affordable housing measured over ten or twenty years rather than one political term. They also need an honest public conversation: one that recognises tourism’s economic importance, confronts its pressures and avoids turning residents, visitors, foreign buyers or real estate agents into convenient enemies.

We work under the laws in force and we are part of the same society and the same daily life of its towns and cities. That is precisely why we should take part in the discussion rather than pretend it has nothing to do with us.