This is the Estepona property market report Q4 2025, our archived edition covering the fourth quarter of 2025. It formed part of our quarterly analysis of the Estepona residential market, compiled from official Spanish registry and notarial data.

For the current quarter, see the latest Estepona property market report. Reading consecutive editions shows direction, which is more useful than any single quarter alone.

The Completions Quarter

Estepona closed 2025 with a pronounced increase in recorded activity, registering 1,073 transactions in the fourth quarter. That was a substantial rise from the 767 sales recorded in Q3 and a marked increase on the 744 transactions of Q4 2024. Quarter on quarter, volumes expanded by approximately 40 per cent, while year on year growth exceeded 44 per cent.

At first glance that suggests strong acceleration into year end. The composition of the activity tells a more useful story, and it is the reason the Estepona property market report Q4 2025 is worth reading rather than skimming.

Delivery, Not a Demand Spike

Of the 1,073 transactions recorded, 321 were classified as new build sales, close to 30 per cent of quarterly volume.

Those transactions largely reflect project completions and registrations rather than sales agreed during the quarter itself.

In practical terms, a significant proportion of these units were reserved off plan 12 to 24 months earlier.

Sales Volume and Growth

The quarterly progression through 2025 was uneven in a way that is characteristic of Estepona. Volumes ran at roughly 900 in the third quarter by the contemporaneous estimate, later restated to 767, before the Q4 surge to 1,073.

Read across the full year rather than quarter by quarter, Estepona recorded 3,466 annual transactions in 2025, up from 3,163 in 2024 and comfortably above the 2,688 of 2023. The Q4 figure is the peak of a genuinely strong year, not an anomaly standing on its own.

What the New Build Share Really Shows

New build at 30 per cent of quarterly volume is unusually high, and it is the single most misread number in this edition. It does not mean three in ten Estepona buyers chose new build that quarter. It means three in ten completed legal transfers that quarter happened to be new build units reaching handover.

Estepona’s active development pipeline translates into measurable transaction peaks as projects complete and transfer to buyers. The volume uplift therefore reflects a combination of delivery timing and sustained absorption rather than a sudden change in demand.

Resale Held Its Own

This is the detail that makes Q4 2025 genuinely encouraging rather than merely large. Resale transactions totalled 752, approximately 70 per cent of activity, and resale volumes also increased meaningfully against both Q3 and Q4 2024.

Expansion was therefore not solely completion driven. Liquidity within the secondary market remained healthy, supported by Estepona’s relative value positioning within the Golden Triangle. A quarter inflated purely by handovers would show flat resale underneath. This one did not.

Price Performance

Average closing values reached approximately €2,500 per square metre, continuing the upward trajectory seen throughout the year. Quarterly price growth remained positive and annual appreciation continued in the low to mid teens.

Controlled Rather Than Speculative

Despite the strong rise in transaction volume, pricing behaviour stayed measured.

The data indicates steady capital growth supported by sustained demand, rather than excessive upward pressure triggered by short term completion spikes.

That distinction matters. Completion driven volume with speculative pricing is a warning sign. Completion driven volume with controlled pricing is a functioning market.

Estepona’s pricing differential against Marbella remained the key structural driver. Buyers continued to secure contemporary new build product at materially lower price points, reinforcing the municipality’s attractiveness for both primary residence and investment strategies.

Who Was Buying

Foreign capital was involved in 63.2 per cent of Estepona transactions in the quarter, a figure that shapes how the market behaves in almost every other respect. Central European participation, particularly from Poland, strengthened considerably against pre 2022 levels, contributing to broader geographic diversification of the buyer base.

A Younger, Broader Buyer Base

Estepona’s buyers skew slightly younger and more mid market than Marbella’s.

Comparatively accessible pricing broadens eligibility, attracting professionals in their thirties and forties alongside established second home buyers.

A growing proportion intend extended occupation or partial relocation rather than purely seasonal use.

That last shift is the one with long term consequences. It reinforces a move toward year round residential depth, which supports local services and the long term rental market in a way that a purely seasonal owner base does not, and it makes the municipality less exposed to tourism cycles.

The off plan commitment dynamic points the same way. Buyers committing to new developments 12 to 24 months before completion are typically allocating equity on a multi year horizon. That is capital preservation and lifestyle positioning, not short term speculation, and it is a materially more stable form of demand.

Financing Structure

Financing behaviour in Estepona reflects a blended structure rather than the near total cash dominance seen at the top of the Marbella market. Mortgage participation is somewhat higher, particularly among domestic buyers, while international purchasers continue to transact with significant equity contributions.

That blend has a specific practical effect. The high proportion of foreign capital provides insulation from purely domestic credit conditions, while the greater mortgage participation means Estepona still benefits when European financing conditions improve. It is exposed to less downside than a fully leveraged market and captures more upside than a purely cash one.

Supply and Development

The completions that drove this quarter came from the largest residential development pipeline on the Costa del Sol. Estepona’s land availability and comparatively efficient permitting have allowed it to build at a scale neither Marbella nor Benahavís can match, and Q4 2025 is what that capacity looks like when several projects reach handover together.

The important qualification is that supply arriving is not the same as supply sitting unsold. The units transferring in this quarter had largely been committed to well in advance, and asking prices across remaining inventory had moved above launch levels. Estepona was absorbing its pipeline, not accumulating it.

That distinction is what separates healthy development led growth from oversupply. An oversupplied market shows rising completions alongside falling prices and lengthening sales periods. Estepona showed rising completions alongside rising prices and growing resale volumes, which is the opposite signature.

Market Positioning

The Q4 data confirms Estepona’s role as the Golden Triangle’s primary development and expansion corridor. Transaction volumes are increasingly shaped by delivery cycles, yet underlying resale activity demonstrates genuine liquidity and broad demand participation.

Unlike Marbella, where structural land scarcity limits the new build contribution to total activity, Estepona benefits from greater development capacity. That creates more pronounced volume variability between quarters, particularly when larger projects complete together, which is exactly what happened here.

What Q4 2025 Meant for Buyers and Sellers

For buyers

Buyers reading the Estepona property market report Q4 2025 should note one thing above all. A record quarter is not the same as a competitive one. Much of the volume was buyers taking delivery of homes they had committed to years earlier, so it did not represent fresh competition for available stock. Resale buyers faced a normal market.

For sellers

Rising resale volumes alongside record completions indicated genuine depth of demand. Sellers of well presented resale property were not being crowded out by new build, which is the usual fear in a heavy delivery quarter.

What Q4 2025 Told Us With Hindsight

Read now, this edition set up the apparent collapse that followed. Q1 2026 recorded 598 transactions, a fall of over 40 per cent, and was widely reported as a downturn.

The Estepona property market report Q4 2025 explains why that reading was wrong. Q4 2025 was inflated by simultaneous completions. Once those projects had transferred, the next quarter necessarily looked smaller. Anyone who had understood the composition of this quarter would not have been surprised by the next one.

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