Buying a home in Marbella requires 76% of average household's income
Vélez-Málaga, also on the Costa del Sol, is also at what is considered a 'critical' level of access, because the mortgage payment accounts for more than 50% of the family income
Valuations company Tinsa has analysed the real estate market in the most important municipalities in Spain. Of these, 27% show rates of theoretical purchase effort (percentage of income to be allocated to the mortgage payment) above 35%, which is considered reasonable. In addition, eight of them exceed 45% of family income - a level that is already considered "critical" when it comes to access.
Marbella, along with Benidorm and Torrevieja, have the highest rates of effort among the sample of municipalities analysed in the study. The mortgage there takes more than 60% of disposable income. Marbella stands out: buying a house there means setting aside 76% of the average household's income.
The other municipality in Malaga province where the figure is critical is Vélez-Málaga, where mortgage payments account for 52% of income. Similar is the situation in the Cadiz municipalities of Sanlúcar de Barrameda, Chiclana de la Frontera and El Puerto de Santa María.
Marbella is also the municipality in Spain where the price of a property exceeds that of the provincial capital (in this case Malaga) by the greatest proportion: no less than 29%. In any case, although all these figures are alarming, the situation is not much better in the rest of the Costa del Sol province. The purchase of a house in Malaga city requires 54.6% of the average household's income, while the provincial average is 57.7%.
According to Tinsa data, house prices in Marbella and Vélez-Málaga have risen by 17.2% and 14.7% in the last year, respectively. The square metre price in Marbella is at 3,421 euros (almost 30% above Malaga city prices), while it is just over 2,100 euros in Vélez-Málaga - a figure still 20% below that of Malaga city.
