Savills Spain marks ten years of Visión Málaga property market analysis

For a decade, Savills has tracked the evolution of Malaga through Visión, a platform that combines data, analysis and knowledge of the city’s property market with the firm’s global and local experience. The aim is to understand and share key information that supports decisions about the city’s needs for places to live and work, and to accommodate the expected economic and social growth.

At the 10th anniversary presentation, held last week, José Félix Pérez-Peña, director of Savills Andalucía, said: “Ten years ago, the vision for Malaga was largely about repositioning and growth potential. Today, the conversation is different. It’s no longer about how much Malaga can grow, but about what decisions need to be taken now for the city of the next decade.”

The online platform reviews the state of housing, offices, retail and logistics space, hotels, student residences and other accommodation options for different kinds of visitors, both tourists and business travellers. It also assesses how well they can keep pace with growth in the coming years. It also links the new challenges arising from the city’s rapid transformation to infrastructure, services and quality of life, treating them as parts of a single ecosystem.

The report has become a reference point for the property sector because it takes a global view of the key issues. These range from the city’s housing potential and the role of new flexible accommodation models to how the quality of office buildings affects Malaga’s ability to keep attracting companies and talent, and whether more hotels are needed.

As Pérez-Peña explains: “In an increasingly complex situation, having data is key, but it’s no longer enough. We need to interpret it, relate it to economic, social and urban dynamics and turn it into informed conversations and decisions, understanding where the city is heading.”

That is the space Visión occupies. The value of analysing a city over time lies as much in measuring its indicators as in seeing how they change and how they interact, creating new needs.

The forecast that Malaga province’s population will grow by more than 250,000 over the next 15 years lets you read many of Visión’s indicators in the same light. More housing for a larger and increasingly varied demand means that, on top of the new supply needed to ease the current shortfall, there is demographic pressure. Over the short, medium and long term, the platform sets out options for this variety of needs through different approaches, from public and affordable housing to a whole living sector on commercial land that is adding alternatives to ease pressure on the rental market. This variety of supply is also decisive for the city’s social and economic development, as it helps attract and retain talent linked to new universities and professional opportunities.

The circle then widens again. More people and activity need more services, infrastructure, capacity to host new industries and space for logistics. These stop being separate markets and become parts of a single equation for growth that Malaga will have to keep pace with in the years ahead.

All of this is available online to continue the conversation about the Malaga of 2036.