MADRID – Alejandra Spadoni cannot afford to rent her own flat on the Spanish island of Mallorca because property prices have risen so much thanks to the boom in tourist lets . The 63-year-old school monitor and cleaner must share the two-bedroom flat where she lives in Palma de Mallorca with a male friend or she could not pay the monthly rent of €840 (£708). She earns €1,103 a month, which is not enough to afford even the smallest flat on the island, where average prices are €1,200 per month.
“The island is very popular. Tourists bring a lot of money to the island. People rent out their properties to British and German people in summer because they know that they can get more,” Ms Spadoni told i .
Her case is typical of many Spaniards who are priced out of the rental market because tourist lets in holiday resorts like Palma de Mallorca have pushed prices beyond what local people can afford . House prices in the Balearic Islands have risen almost 200 per cent in the past decade, while average salaries have only increased by 23 per cent, according to a recent report from Pisos.com, a property agency.
In the past five years, foreign nationals, mostly Britons and Germans, have bought 15,659 properties in the islands, according to the Notaries Statistics Centre. Notaries are officials that deal with property purchases in Spain. “Mallorca is fashionable and many people come here.
To accommodate all these people, they have to attract more people to work in tourism. Bu.
