President of the Balearic Government, Marga Prohens, has said she opposes limiting the sale of property to foreigners in the islands, despite mounting pressure from local parties to act on rising house prices they claim are pushed up by second-home demand from overseas.
Balearic homes should “absolutely” prioritise residents—just not at the expense of private property rights or EU law, Prohens said this week in the Balearic Parliament, in response to a proposal put forward by Més per Menorca to restrict purchases in areas declared in housing emergency.
A familiar battle over real estate
Josep Castells, a deputy from Més per Menorca, argued that the “very high demand” from wealthy foreign buyers for second homes is pricing local families out of the market, and changing the character of the islands in the process.
“This trend doesn’t only affect locals’ access to housing,” Castells warned. “It’s also transforming commercial areas to serve tourists rather than residents, leading to the depopulation of villages, and making it impossible for many young people to return to the islands they grew up in.”
That’s why his party’s latest legislative proposal calls for a legal requirement that properties in designated ‘emergency’ zones be sold only to those with long-standing resident, economic, or social ties to the islands.
Prohens takes a different tack
While acknowledging that the Balearics are facing an “extraordinary” housing crisis, Prohens made it clear she opposes outright bans on foreign real estate purchases.
“Yes to priority for residents,” she said, “but not by placing the burden on our citizens. We cannot tell families who they can or cannot sell their homes to.”
Prohens pointed to European Union laws protecting the free movement of people and capital, as well as the constitutional right to private property. Any attempt to restrict sales solely to local residents or exclude non-residents would likely be deemed illegal under EU law.
Instead, her government is focusing its efforts on publicly funded housing, where it can legally establish residency conditions. Under a recent decree, anyone applying for subsidised or “affordable” housing must have lived in the Balearics for at least five years—a minimum term that municipalities are free to extend. Some already have: Esporles and Paguera have set the bar at seven years, and the town of Sencelles has gone further still, requiring ten.
Blame game over past housing failures
In defending her approach, Prohens also took aim at previous administrations, saying that under the left-wing governments of the last eight years, “more luxury homes were built for foreign buyers than ever before.” Her emphasis, she said, will be on building homes for “families, young people, middle incomes and workers” who live and work in the region.
However, Castells is calling on Prohens to go further and adopt “braver measures” like the ones championed by Més per Menorca. But his chances of success appear slim, given Prohens’s strong stance on respecting private property and EU rules.
“I understand that you don’t like it,” she told Castells, “but that doesn’t mean we can prohibit families from selling their homes to non-residents for two years.”
What’s next?
For now, the regional government’s strategy is to reinforce residency-based access to publicly funded housing while sidestepping the legal and political headaches that would come with broader restrictions on sales to non-residents, including foreigners. Whether that approach will be enough to tame Balearic property prices remains to be seen.
