The consultation window closes on 31 August 2026, which makes this the last month in which the scheme can still change shape. Ensanche Norte is the smallest of the three urban transformation actions Marbella has moved through its Junta de Gobierno Local this year, and it is also the one nearest to a spade in the ground. Everything about it is specific, from the plot boundaries to the projected municipal income. Anyone who owns, rents or is looking to buy in San Pedro Alcántara has a reason to read it properly.

We sell free market homes across Marbella and San Pedro, not protected housing, and we have watched buyers move steadily west out of Nueva Andalucía and Puerto Banús into San Pedro for the past five years. What a town hall chooses to build inside its own perimeter tells you where it expects that demand to go next, and 129 homes on the district’s last serious gap is a straight answer to that question.

What Ensanche Norte actually puts on the ground

Of the 129 homes, 103 will be sold on the open market and 26 will be protected housing under the Andalusian VPO rules. The commercial floor area runs to 1,380 square metres, most of it facing the main avenue, and the roads take 1,732 square metres. Green zones and public space account for 12,634 square metres, which is close to sixty percent of the whole block, and that single ratio is what separates this scheme from most of what has been built on this coast in the last thirty years. The protected element runs to a fifth of the homes.

The resulting density lands between 61 and 65 homes per hectare. For an urban plot this close to a town centre that is moderate, and it sits well below the density of the coastal apartment blocks nearer the beach. Anyone who has viewed in the older parts of San Pedro knows the complaint about narrow pavements and thin shade, and the people drawing it have clearly read the same complaint.

Ground floor commercial on the avenue frontage matters more than the square metres suggest. A neighbourhood with its own shops holds its value differently from one that sends every resident to the car for a litre of milk, and the buyers we place in San Pedro ask about the walk to a supermarket almost as often as they ask about the sea view.

Why the Ensanche Norte block stayed empty

Urban voids of this size do not survive by accident in a municipality where land is the scarcest thing there is. Ownership on the parcel had to consolidate, the planning designation had to settle, and San Pedro itself had to finish becoming part of greater Marbella rather than a separate town along the road. Burying the bypass and building the boulevard over it did more for that than any planning document, because it changed how people move through the place.

Marbella’s town hall now wants to build inside the existing urban perimeter rather than push further into the hillside, and Ensanche Norte fits that instinct exactly. The block is surrounded on four sides by finished streets, live utilities and working infrastructure, so servicing it costs a fraction of what a greenfield site would cost. That logic runs right through the new Marbella general plan, and it is the reason the same officers keep reaching for interior reform rather than expansion.

San Pedro Alcántara has spent years being read as the quieter neighbour of the Golden Mile and Puerto Banús. Filling its most visible gap with a planned neighbourhood rather than a single block of flats is a statement about how the town hall now rates the district, and buyers read those statements faster than they read the planning file.

The money behind Ensanche Norte

The financial model published with the initial approval puts projected revenues from the finished development at 58.7 million euros against build costs of 31.2 million, leaving a gross margin of 27.5 million before the land itself is paid for. The municipality expects roughly 7.54 million euros in initial contributions tied to the scheme, then an ongoing annual surplus of about 376,000 euros once residents are in and paying local taxes. Those figures come from the agreement reported when the approval was published.

Ten percent of the aprovechamiento medio, the average development yield, transfers to the town hall on schemes like this one, and Marbella has been explicit about spending it through its Plan Municipal de Vivienda y Suelo. Private money builds the homes here, a slice of the uplift in land value funds public housing and infrastructure elsewhere in the municipality, and the council books an income stream it did not have before. That is the mechanism working as designed rather than a windfall.

That mechanism is why a 129 home scheme gets officer time at all. Marbella has spent two years tidying up the machinery around it, from the general plan to the building licence thresholds that decide how fast smaller works clear the counter, and this is the sort of file that machinery was rebuilt to move.

Where the Ensanche Norte approval stands

Initial approval is not permission to pour concrete, and being precise about the stage saves a lot of misplaced optimism. The agreement was published in the Boletín Oficial de la Provincia de Málaga at the end of July 2026, which opened the public information period that runs to 31 August. Neighbouring owners and anyone else with a legitimate interest can lodge observations inside that window, and the file then goes back for review.

Full approval of the Plan de Reforma Interior is targeted for before July 2028. Urbanisation works and the formal division of plots run roughly two years beyond that, so the first residents there are a 2030 proposition rather than a 2027 one. Marbella has moved two larger schemes further in less time this year, so the target is credible. It is still a target rather than a promise, and we will say so plainly the day it slips.

Buyers who want something finished should be looking at the developments already selling rather than waiting for this one. Buyers who plan five years out now have dated milestones to work against, which is a better position than most Costa del Sol schemes offer at this stage. We follow the Marbella planning file week by week and we will tell you the moment the Ensanche Norte plan moves.

The 26 protected homes at Ensanche Norte

Protected housing in Andalucía sells or rents at capped prices, with eligibility tied to household income limits set against IPREM and allocation running through a registration and points system rather than first come first served. Twenty six units is a fifth of the scheme and a small number against demand across the municipality, and every one of them keeps a working household inside the town it works in.

That matters to a free market buyer more than it looks. The people who staff the restaurants, the clinics and the schools in San Pedro have been priced steadily further from the coast, and a district that houses its own workforce keeps the year round economy that international owners are actually buying into. Estepona has been running the same play at much larger scale with its 1,200 home protected housing programme, and the two town halls are reading the same demand. Both of them are planning for towns that keep growing.

The protected units at Ensanche Norte will not compete with resale stock, so an owner in San Pedro is not selling against them. Ask us and we will tell you what the free market element of the scheme is likely to mean for the street you own on, using the sales we have actually closed in the district rather than asking prices.

What 129 homes do to the San Pedro Alcántara market

New supply that arrives as one coordinated neighbourhood behaves differently from the same number of units dribbled out over a decade. San Pedro has appreciated steadily as buyers priced out of central Marbella and Puerto Banús looked west for value, a working high street and a genuine local population, and a scheme with almost 13,000 square metres of green space and its own commercial spine reinforces exactly the qualities those buyers came for.

Land values in districts slated for quality infill tend to move well before the cranes arrive, and the streets immediately around it are already built out with established blocks and a functioning high street. Owners there stand to gain from having a planned neighbourhood next door rather than another decade of waste ground, and the Marbella market report is where we track what that does to values quarter by quarter. San Pedro has been one of the steadier lines in it.

For owners weighing a sale, the useful move is to know your number before the market repricing happens rather than after. Start with a valuation and we will set it against the closed transactions we hold for San Pedro, which is a very different exercise from reading the portals. If you are buying, tell us what you are looking for and we will show you where the district is genuinely undervalued today.

Ensanche Norte alongside La Vizcaína and La Víbora

Marbella has approved three urban transformation actions in six months and they sit at very different scales. The Junta de Gobierno Local signed off the La Vizcaína documentation on 17 February 2026, covering 623,339 square metres between the AP-7 and the coast, with between 685 and 872 homes and up to 400 million euros in play. A month later came La Víbora, at 2,776 homes and 870 million euros, both of them reserving forty percent of residential buildability for protected or affordable rental housing.

Against those, 129 homes reads as a rounding error, and that is the point. Ensanche Norte is small enough to be delivered inside one planning cycle, it sits in a district with proven demand and no price ceiling problem, and it is further through the process than either of the giants. The big schemes will shape Marbella East for a generation. This one changes a neighbourhood that already works, and it changes it first.

The common thread is the same funding mechanism, the same preference for filling gaps over pushing outward, and the same forty percent to twenty percent range of protected housing written into the consent. Read together, the three approvals are the clearest signal Marbella has given in years about where it intends the next twenty thousand residents to live.

How we read the Ensanche Norte timetable

The first checkpoint is the close of public information on 31 August, and the second is how quickly the Plan de Reforma Interior comes back after the objections are reviewed. Marbella has cleared two far larger files this year, so the officers plainly have capacity, and the 2028 target for full approval is the number to hold them to. We will report again when the plan moves.

Anyone buying off plan in a scheme at this stage is buying a timetable as much as a home, which is why the off plan guide spends most of its length on guarantees, phases and what a reservation actually commits you to. The Marbella buyers guide covers the purchase process itself, and the current market report covers the numbers underneath it.

If you own in San Pedro Alcántara and want to understand what Ensanche Norte does to your position, we will do that work for you rather than send you to the planning counter. Tell us the street and we will come back with what has sold there, what is on the market and what the scheme next door is likely to change, and if you decide to move on it the sales side is ready when you are.

The Costa del Sol property market continues to evolve, but informed decisions begin with reliable data. Download the JUST Q1 2026 Marbella Property Market Report today and gain exclusive insight into one of Europe’s most resilient and internationally driven residential markets.

Research enquiries:
James Evans — Managing Partner
📞 +34 643 390 376 | ✉️ james@justrealestate.es

Sales enquiries:
Alina Nouaimeh — Partner
📞 +34 600 689 749 | ✉️ alina@justrealestate.es

FAQ

Is the JUST Market Report free to download?

Yes. The report is available as a complimentary download and provides professional analysis of the Marbella, Estepona and Benahávis property markets.

Who is the report designed for?

The report is written for buyers, sellers, investors, developers, relocation clients, family offices and anyone seeking accurate, data-led insight into the Costa del Sol property market.

Where does the data come from?

Our analysis uses official information from Registradores de España, INE, Notariado, Tinsa, Banco de España and other recognised industry sources, combined with our own market observations and research.

How often is the report updated?

JUST Real Estate publishes a comprehensive market report every quarter, ensuring readers have access to the latest available market intelligence.

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Marbella takes two more places on the same list, with Calle Osa Menor seventh at 7.85 million euros and Cascada de Camoján tenth at 6.395 million. That gives Málaga three of the national top ten, alongside the Balearics with three and Madrid with four, and no other province gets more than one. The study behind the ranking uses median asking prices on currently advertised homes.

We work in Benahavís and Marbella every week and this ranking confirms what our own transaction records already showed. The interesting part is not the headline number, it is what sits underneath it, because Benahavís property prices at the very top are built on something a competitor cannot simply decide to replicate.

The numbers behind Benahavís property prices

The full national top ten runs Camí des Salinar in Andratx at 15 million euros, Paseo de los Lagos in Pozuelo de Alarcón at 11 million, Coto Zagaleta in Benahavís at 10.5 million, Carrer Mossa in Palma at 9.8 million and Paseo del Conde de los Gaitanes in La Moraleja at 8.9 million. Carrer Binicaubell in Palma takes sixth at 7.9 million, then Calle Osa Menor in Marbella, Calle Serrano and Calle José Ortega y Gasset in Madrid at 6.95 million each, and Cascada de Camoján closes the list.

Third place puts Benahavís property prices into a genuine change of position rather than a continuation of an old hierarchy. Andratx and Pozuelo have been prime for decades, and the estate that Coto Zagaleta runs through was raw hillside inside living memory. Getting from there to within 500,000 euros of the national number two took about thirty years. Nobody on this coast planned that trajectory, and the people who bought early have been the beneficiaries of it.

The gap to the rest of the country is the part worth sitting with. The most expensive street in Castilla La Mancha, Calle Rusia in Ciudad Real, carries a median of 335,000 euros, so the distance between the top of Spain and the top of an entire inland region runs to nearly 14.7 million euros. Few single comparisons capture the Spanish market as cleanly, and it explains why national averages are close to useless on this coast.

Why Coto Zagaleta sits where it does

La Zagaleta was drawn from the start as an exceptionally private, low density estate, and scarcity is doing most of the work in Benahavís property prices at this level. The estate covers a large stretch of protected hillside with a hard limit on the number of plots, two private golf courses, an equestrian centre and a security operation closer to a diplomatic compound than a residential neighbourhood. Membership of the club is a condition of ownership, which filters the buyer pool before a price is discussed.

Buyers at this level are not chasing a location because it is famous. They are buying the fact that nobody can build another one, that the plot next door will never be subdivided, and that the road in has a gate on it. Those three conditions are structurally difficult to reproduce once the best ground on a hillside has been taken, and they are the whole of the La Zagaleta proposition. Everything else on the estate follows from those three.

Very little of it trades in public. Sales inside the estate are typically marketed to a small pool of qualified buyers and settled quietly. That is exactly why an asking price ranking reads high here, and why we treat our own record of what has actually completed as the more useful number.

How Marbella’s two entries compare

Calle Osa Menor at 7.85 million euros and Cascada de Camoján at 6.395 million sit in the gated hillside above Marbella, on ground that shares the logic of Coto Zagaleta. Restricted plot numbers, mature planting, thirty years of architectural control and a view over the coastline that flatter, more accessible land closer to the beach cannot offer. Sierra Blanca and the enclaves around it have anchored the top of the Marbella market for a generation on precisely that basis.

Neither Marbella street matches Coto Zagaleta, and Marbella is by far the bigger and better known luxury market of the two. Brand recognition and exclusivity are not the same thing. Marbella is the name the world knows, and at the very peak, Benahavís property prices have gone past it.

The result also says something about how the two municipalities grew. Marbella built outward and along the coast for sixty years and carries every price band inside its boundaries. Benahavís chose one segment and built almost nothing else. It now owns the top of the national table, and it got there without a coastline.

Who buys at these numbers and why

At this level almost nobody needs to sell. There may be a want, and there is very often a need to buy on the other side of the table, and that asymmetry is what holds Benahavís property prices where they are. A seller who can wait sets the asking price, and a buyer who has decided on this specific hillside has nowhere else to go for the same combination of privacy, golf, security and a view of the Mediterranean and Africa on the same morning.

The buyers we meet at these Benahavís property prices are not comparing the municipality with the next Spanish province. They are comparing it with the south of France, with Lake Como and with the Algarve, and on plot size, climate, flight connections and the cost of running a large house it wins that comparison more often than the headline numbers suggest. Málaga airport is what makes the argument, because a house you can reach on a Friday evening gets used.

Second and third generation ownership is the other force underneath these figures. Houses bought here in the 1990s and 2000s are now being renovated rather than sold, which keeps supply tight at exactly the moment demand is deepest. That is why Benahavís property prices have held their direction through interest rate cycles that moved the rest of the Spanish market around.

What an asking price ranking does and does not tell you

The ranking is a median of what is currently advertised, not a record of what has been paid. In the ultra prime segment the two can sit some distance apart in either direction, depending on how motivated a seller is and how long a house has been quietly shown to a handful of people. A ranking like this measures ambition accurately and completion only loosely.

Our own Benahavís market report puts a number on the distance between advertised and achieved Benahavís property prices. Across the municipality the asking median runs at 5,795 euros per square metre against 4,529 euros actually achieved on notarial deeds, 21.9 percent apart, and that gap is not a negotiating discount. The stock advertised on the networks we track has a median of 340 square metres against an average of 219 for what actually transacts, so the two figures are measuring different houses.

The ranking also excludes everything that never reaches a public listing, which in this bracket is a large share of the market. We hold our own record of completed sales across Benahavís and Marbella, built up over years and including transactions that never appeared on a portal. Setting a specific house against that record is a different exercise from reading a headline, and it is the one that decides what an offer should be. Ask us and we will tell you what comparable homes have genuinely achieved.

None of that makes the ranking less useful. It is independent, it is national, and it puts a number on something owners here have felt for several years. Read it as a marker of where Benahavís property prices now sit relative to the rest of Spain, and take the completion data from someone who has it.

How Benahavís built this position

For most of the twentieth century Benahavís was a hill village known for its restaurants rather than its property market. That changed from the 1990s, when large tracts of inland hillside that were useless for the intensive coastal apartment building then reshaping Marbella and Estepona turned out to be ideal for low density, golf centred estates. La Zagaleta began as combined golf land before becoming the private estate it is now, and La Quinta, El Madroñal and La Alquería followed the same template at different scales.

The population numbers tell the same story from another angle. Benahavís went from 2,401 residents in 2003 to 9,472 at the start of 2025 on the INE padrón, close to four times its size in twenty two years, and almost all of that growth came from international buyers and residents. We covered the wider version of that shift in our piece on Costa del Sol population growth, and Benahavís is its sharpest example.

Thirty years of consistent positioning is what produced these Benahavís property prices. No single sale did it, and no marketing campaign did it either. A municipality that refused to build the cheap thing when the cheap thing was easy money now has the most expensive street in Andalucía inside its boundary.

Benahavís property prices below the summit

Coto Zagaleta is one road inside one estate and it is not representative of Benahavís property prices as a whole. Benahavís property prices across La Quinta, La Alquería, El Paraíso Alto and the village itself sit far below it while remaining firmly at the upper end of the Costa del Sol market, and that spread is where most of our Benahavís business actually happens. Even inside the estate the distribution is wide, with newly completed houses well above the median and older properties awaiting renovation well below it.

Strength at the top of Benahavís property prices tends to support the tiers underneath rather than sit isolated above them. Buyers priced out of the gated estates have historically taken the ground immediately around them, which is why the areas just outside the gates have followed the same curve with a lag. The Benahavís market report tracks that relationship quarter by quarter.

This also fits the wider pattern we have been reporting all year, of fewer transactions and higher prices across the region as fewer, wealthier buyers compete for the scarcest homes while activity further down the ladder cools. The luxury segment has been the clearest expression of it, and one street at 10.5 million euros is that pattern in a single line.

Where this leaves an owner or a buyer in Benahavís

If you own inside the estate or on the Benahavís hillside around it, an independent national ranking is a genuinely useful reference point for a valuation conversation, an insurance review or simply knowing where your plot sits. It is a median for one street, so it is a starting point rather than an answer. Start with a valuation and we will set your house against the sales we hold rather than against a headline.

If you are buying, the practical opportunity is rarely on Coto Zagaleta itself, where availability is thin and most of it moves privately. It is in the ground around it, where the same views, the same golf and much of the same privacy are available at a fraction of the number. Tell us what you are looking for and we will show you where that ground actually is, including the houses that never reach a portal.

We have been selling in this municipality since 2015, with 25 years of Costa del Sol experience behind the team, and the off market side of Benahavís is most of what we do here. Talk to us before you take a public asking price as the market, and if you are weighing a sale the sales side is ready when you are.

The Costa del Sol property market continues to evolve, but informed decisions begin with reliable data. Download the JUST Q1 2026 Marbella Property Market Report today and gain exclusive insight into one of Europe’s most resilient and internationally driven residential markets.

Research enquiries:
James Evans — Managing Partner
📞 +34 643 390 376 | ✉️ james@justrealestate.es

Sales enquiries:
Alina Nouaimeh — Partner
📞 +34 600 689 749 | ✉️ alina@justrealestate.es

FAQ

Is the JUST Market Report free to download?

Yes. The report is available as a complimentary download and provides professional analysis of the Marbella, Estepona and Benahávis property markets.

Who is the report designed for?

The report is written for buyers, sellers, investors, developers, relocation clients, family offices and anyone seeking accurate, data-led insight into the Costa del Sol property market.

Where does the data come from?

Our analysis uses official information from Registradores de España, INE, Notariado, Tinsa, Banco de España and other recognised industry sources, combined with our own market observations and research.

How often is the report updated?

JUST Real Estate publishes a comprehensive market report every quarter, ensuring readers have access to the latest available market intelligence.

Our latest listings

View our latest listings of luxury properties for sale, where sophistication and comfort come together for an exceptional living experience.

Mijas Pueblo · JUST-00992P

4 bedroom villa for sale in Mijas Pueblo, Mijas

• 4 beds
• 4 baths
• Plot: 580 m²
• Interior: 150 m²

€2,250,000

Mijas · JUST-239312

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• Plot: 580 m²
• Interior: 150 m²

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Mijas · 5859MLV

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Those three sit with the Junta de Andalucía waiting on coastal authorisation, and the council has separately committed close to 900,000 euros this year to renewing the beach services along the same shoreline. Taken together they show a town hall treating its coast as one piece of infrastructure rather than a string of unrelated beaches, which is a rarer thing on this coast than it sounds.

We sell across Estepona every week and walkability comes up in almost every viewing on the western side of the municipality. A buyer who can leave the car and walk to the marina pays for that, and the Estepona Corredor Litoral is the reason a growing number of them can.

What the Estepona Corredor Litoral actually is

This is not a paved seafront boulevard lined with restaurants. The Estepona Corredor Litoral is a continuous pedestrian and cycling route, much of it timber decking raised above dunes, rock and low ground that would otherwise be impassable on foot. Its job is to connect every urbanisation along the municipality’s coastline into one walkable corridor, so that residents of Costalita, Bahía Dorada, Atalaya, El Saladillo, Benamara and a dozen other communities can reach the town centre without touching a road. The Estepona Corredor Litoral is public and free at every point along it.

The seventeen footbridges on the Estepona Corredor Litoral are the engineering story. They cross streams, rock outcrops and protected dune, and each one had to clear an environmental and coastal authorisation before a plank went down. Laying decking along flat sand would have been finished a decade ago, and the reason this route took fifteen years is that most of it is not flat sand.

The Estepona Corredor Litoral also does something quieter for the coast itself. Raising the path above the dune keeps walkers off it, which is why the environmental consent exists in the first place, and the sections built in the last five years have visibly regenerated ground that private development had left disconnected and neglected. The dune systems either side of the newer timber have come back noticeably.

The three sections that finish the Estepona Corredor Litoral

The council confirmed in April 2026 that the three outstanding stretches are Isdabe and Atalaya on the eastern side, Guadalmina Baja to Casasola at the far eastern end, and Costa Natura to the west. Basic projects, justification reports, drawings, technical assessments, budgets and photographic surveys for all three went to the Consejería de Sostenibilidad y Medio Ambiente, and the works can be tendered as soon as the coastal authority reports favourably.

Ana Velasco, the deputy mayor for development, infrastructure and tourism, put it plainly when the three projects went in, saying that once they are built and connected the corridor is finished and the 23 kilometres of Estepona coastline are united. That is one sentence with a lot of administrative distance behind it, and it is also the first time the end of the project has been described as a specific, remaining piece of work. Fifteen years in, that is a real milestone.

Authorisation from Costas is the step outside the town hall’s control, and it is the one worth watching. Everything after it, tender, award and build, has a fifteen year track record behind it on this same route. The council has never yet stopped at the tender stage on a section of this path, and it has awarded two of them in the last eighteen months.

Bahía Dorada and Matas Verdes, the two most recent stretches

Estepona awarded the Bahía Dorada section at 229,137 euros including VAT. It is a 168 metre timber walkway with three metres of usable width, safety railings and LED floor beacons, and it links the existing promenade at the La Galera Beach urbanisation to the track that currently marks the edge of Bahía Dorada. At 168 metres it is one of the longer single spans on the whole route.

Before that came Playa Baños to Matas Verdes on the eastern side, a 578,758 euro contract that went into construction after the council set out the last five sections in 2025. Two of those five are now delivered or building, which is why the remaining list has come down to three, and it is a useful check on how quickly this council actually converts a project into a contract.

The pattern is consistent enough to plan around. A section clears its regional and coastal authorisations, the detailed project is drawn, the work goes to tender, and construction follows within roughly a year of the award. Terrain and permitting drive the variation, and the sections through built up urbanisations have moved fastest. The three that are left run through exactly that kind of ground.

Nearly 900,000 euros going into the beaches this year

Alongside the path, the town hall has committed close to 900,000 euros to renewing beach services at Arroyo Vaquero, El Cristo, La Rada, El Saladillo, El Padrón and the Paseo Marítimo. One contract of 421,685 euros covers six lifeguard modules, nine sanitary modules with accessible units and ramps, and a store for rescue equipment and amphibious chairs. Works start in the coming months.

The second contract, at 457,259 euros, replaces the old timber beach access with 1,250 linear metres of prefabricated concrete walkway at 1.8 metres wide, plus 42 drainage platforms for showers and foot washes and 40 more for the beach modules. Wider, harder wearing access at beach level, feeding a continuous path behind it, is a coherent piece of planning even though it has been paid for across several budget cycles. Estepona has 21 beaches to keep, and it spends on them like a town that knows it.

Estepona has done this before with the town centre, where the boulevard and promenade works changed how the whole seafront reads to a buyer. The coastal fringe has had the same attention, spread thinner and over longer, and the compounding effect is what shows up in prices.

What a continuous coastal path does to Estepona property

Walkability is not an abstraction on this coast, it is a line item in what a buyer will pay. A villa or an apartment that needed a car for every trip becomes a different proposition once a safe, direct route to the marina exists, and the northern European buyers and remote workers who make up a growing share of our enquiries actively look for it. Rental performance follows the same logic, because a tenant without a hire car needs somewhere to walk to.

The effect of the Estepona Corredor Litoral is uneven rather than uniform, and that is where the opportunity sits. Costalita, El Saladillo and Benamara have had finished path for years and their prices already carry it. Homes beside the three unbuilt stretches have not yet been repriced for a connection that is drawn, budgeted and sitting with the regional authority, and that gap is the most interesting thing on this stretch of the New Golden Mile right now.

Estepona has a run of these underneath it at the moment, from the IBI reduction to the protected housing programme and the new build corridor around the New Golden Mile schemes. The Estepona market report is where we set those against actual transaction data quarter by quarter, and the current edition covers the western municipality in detail.

Which Estepona urbanisations gain most from the last three sections

Isdabe and Atalaya sit on the eastern side toward Marbella, where the coastline is dense with established urbanisations and the missing link is short but awkward. Guadalmina Baja to Casasola closes the municipal boundary itself, which matters because it puts the Estepona Corredor Litoral within walking reach of San Pedro. Costa Natura, to the west, is the last gap before the run out toward Bahía Dorada.

Owners along those three stretches are holding the part of the coast with the most left to gain. Everyone else is already connected, and the value of that connection is in their asking prices. We hold detailed records of what has sold along this coastline, built up over years, and setting a specific plot against the comparable ones either side of a finished section is how you see the difference clearly. Nobody publishes that comparison, and we would not expect an owner to assemble it alone.

Ask us and we will tell you exactly which side of a tramo boundary a given property falls, because fifty metres and five hundred metres from a new access are two different properties and a general map will not tell you which one you are looking at. That is our job rather than yours, and we would rather do it before you make an offer than after.

How the Estepona Corredor Litoral has been built since 2011

The Estepona Corredor Litoral has never been a single construction contract. It has advanced section by section and budget cycle by budget cycle since the council first committed to it in 2011, and each stretch has followed the same sequence of preliminary regional approval, detailed project, public tender and construction. In practice that takes somewhere between one and three years per section depending on the terrain and on how quickly the environmental and coastal authorisations come through.

Earlier phases closed the gaps around Benamara, where the path now runs straight through to El Saladillo, and around Dos Hermanas, where a stretch of urbanisation that had been isolated on foot for thirty years connects west into the Costalita corridor. Neither of those made much noise when they opened. Both changed how a whole set of properties are described in a viewing, which is the part that reaches a price.

Fifteen years is a long time to hold a plan together, and the mayor has been consistent about it through several terms. That consistency is worth something in a region where infrastructure promises do not always survive the next electoral cycle, and it is the main reason we treat the remaining three sections of the Estepona Corredor Litoral as a matter of when rather than whether.

How we read the Estepona Corredor Litoral timetable

The next public act on the Estepona Corredor Litoral is the coastal authorisation on any one of the three, and the one after that is a tender notice. Both are published, both are dated, and we will pick them up as they appear. A project that has run since 2011 through several budget cycles and political terms without being abandoned tends to finish, and this one is now 21 kilometres into 23.

For owners, the useful step is knowing your position before the last sections open rather than after. A valuation is the starting point and the sellers guide covers what actually moves a price on this coast. For buyers, tell us what you are looking for and we will show you the homes where the connection is coming rather than the ones where it arrived five years ago.

The buyers guide covers the purchase process itself if you are new to Spain. Everything else on a specific property, from the tramo boundary to what the neighbours actually paid, we will find out for you.

The Costa del Sol property market continues to evolve, but informed decisions begin with reliable data. Download the JUST Q1 2026 Marbella Property Market Report today and gain exclusive insight into one of Europe’s most resilient and internationally driven residential markets.

Research enquiries:
James Evans — Managing Partner
📞 +34 643 390 376 | ✉️ james@justrealestate.es

Sales enquiries:
Alina Nouaimeh — Partner
📞 +34 600 689 749 | ✉️ alina@justrealestate.es

FAQ

Is the JUST Market Report free to download?

Yes. The report is available as a complimentary download and provides professional analysis of the Marbella, Estepona and Benahávis property markets.

Who is the report designed for?

The report is written for buyers, sellers, investors, developers, relocation clients, family offices and anyone seeking accurate, data-led insight into the Costa del Sol property market.

Where does the data come from?

Our analysis uses official information from Registradores de España, INE, Notariado, Tinsa, Banco de España and other recognised industry sources, combined with our own market observations and research.

How often is the report updated?

JUST Real Estate publishes a comprehensive market report every quarter, ensuring readers have access to the latest available market intelligence.

Our latest listings

View our latest listings of luxury properties for sale, where sophistication and comfort come together for an exceptional living experience.

Mijas Pueblo · JUST-00992P

4 bedroom villa for sale in Mijas Pueblo, Mijas

• 4 beds
• 4 baths
• Plot: 580 m²
• Interior: 150 m²

€2,250,000

Mijas · JUST-239312

4 bedroom villa for sale in Mijas

• 4 beds
• 4 baths
• Plot: 580 m²
• Interior: 150 m²

€2,050,000

Mijas · CP82828

2 bedroom apartment for sale in Mijas

• 2 beds
• 2 baths

€649,000

Mijas · 5859MLV

6 bedroom villa for sale in Mijas

• 6 beds
• 4 baths
• Plot: 658 m²
• Interior: 360 m²

€1,395,000

Valtocado - Mijas · 428-05408P

5 bedroom house for sale in Valtocado, Mijas

• 5 beds
• 4 baths
• Plot: 41,000 m²
• Interior: 378 m²

€2,600,000

Mijas Pueblo · MOJO26006

4 bedroom villa for sale in Mijas Pueblo, Mijas

• 4 beds
• 4 baths
• Plot: 1,974 m²

€2,250,000

Mijas La Nueva · RHS44

Plot for sale in Mijas La Nueva, Mijas

• Plot: 804 m²

€465,000

Loma del Flamenco - Mijas · 361-12699P

Plot for sale in Loma del Flamenco, Mijas

• Plot: 847 m²

€250,000

Mijas · 855-00152P

Plot for sale in Mijas

• Plot: 997 m²

€395,000

Mijas · 855-00151P

Plot for sale in Mijas

• Plot: 1,930 m²

€500,000

Mijas · 855-00150P

Plot for sale in Mijas

• Plot: 1,613 m²

€595,000

Mijas · 855-00149P

Plot for sale in Mijas

• Plot: 675 m²

€395,000

The units sit in Arroyo Vaquero, Camino de Cortes, Guadalobón and Camino de Monterroso, and a February vote on 36 municipal parcels lifted the ceiling well beyond the original figure. Every one of those sites is municipal land or a private plan with a protected quota attached, which is what separates this from the announcements that never reach a licence.

We sell free market property in Estepona, not protected housing, so the reason we are writing about this is what it tells a buyer. A town hall that commits this much land and administrative effort to housing its own workforce is reading sustained demand, and it is planning for the town to keep growing. Both of those points bear directly on anyone weighing a purchase in Estepona over the next five years.

Where the 1,200 Estepona VPO housing units sit

The council breakdown in the January announcement runs to 518 homes in Arroyo Vaquero, 260 in Camino de Cortes, 200 in Guadalobón and 300 in Camino de Monterroso. The Arroyo Vaquero and Camino de Cortes figures have since moved up, and the licence release in March talks about 800 units across Guadalobón and Arroyo Vaquero together, so the honest summary is that 1,200 is the floor for Estepona VPO housing rather than the total.

Then came the plenary of 19 February 2026, which approved a change of use on 36 municipal parcels that had been reserved for public facilities. Under the parameters of the general plan of Estepona those parcels could carry a further 738 protected homes, all of them for public rental. The same session added more Estepona VPO housing for rent, confirming that four more parcels, two in the east of the town and two in the west, would go to tender within days for another 200 rental homes at controlled rents aimed at younger residents and lower income households.

On top of that the council has offered six municipal parcels in Casas del Padrón, Llanos de la Boladilla and Camino de Cortes to the central government, with capacity for 109 protected homes, in response to the state’s España Crece housing fund. Add it all together and Estepona VPO housing in the pipeline is closer to 2,000 units than 1,200, delivered through four different legal routes at once. The council is not relying on any single mechanism, which is the main reason we treat Estepona VPO housing as a credible programme.

Camino de Cortes, the first Estepona VPO housing to reach a licence

The most advanced piece is Camino de Cortes Sur, where the council sold two municipal parcels in 2023 to a non profit housing foundation whose purpose is building protected homes and which already has several promotions under way elsewhere in Málaga province. That foundation applied for its building licence on 17 March 2026 for 117 homes. They split 84 on a 5,882 square metre plot and 33 on a second plot of 2,418 square metres. Municipal technicians were already working the file the day it was announced, and the councillor responsible said the aim was to grant the permits as fast as the process allows.

A second tranche follows in Camino de Cortes Norte, where the town hall is finalising the tender documents for two more parcels able to carry 199 protected homes. That tender has two features we have not seen paired elsewhere on the coast. The land goes out with a maximum price fixed by the council, so bidders compete by offering less for it, and the contracting board awards extra points to any bidder who commits to a lower final price for the buyers of the finished homes. The council has said the land could go at zero cost, with the saving passed into the sale price.

Between the licence in the south and the tender in the north, Camino de Cortes alone accounts for 316 units of Estepona VPO housing. If the 117 move from licence to completion on a normal timetable, that is the clearest test of whether the wider Estepona VPO housing target is deliverable, and we will be watching it for exactly that reason. Camino de Cortes sits inland of the town centre and is already a district of family apartments and local services rather than holiday lets.

Arroyo Vaquero, 683 free market homes alongside 518 protected

The largest single component sits west of the town in Arroyo Vaquero, where the council gave initial approval in November 2025 to a modification of the partial plan covering a 655,250 square metre site. That plan allows 683 free market homes, and the council has been explicit that they must come with 518 protected homes on the same land. Free market and protected housing built together, by the same developer on the same site, is a different model from most of the coast. Elsewhere the two are usually built kilometres apart by different people.

For a buyer looking at western Estepona this is good news on two counts. A scheme of that size brings roads, services and retail with it, and a mixed community keeps those services open all year rather than for the summer. Buyers who want a resort enclave will look elsewhere along the coast, and we can show them the developments that offer it. Buyers who want a home in a working town with schools, shops and neighbours in December will find the Arroyo Vaquero model works in their favour.

The same corridor already carries the largest concentration of new build in the municipality. Our post on the 1,400 new homes at Australy on the New Golden Mile covers the free market side of that story, and the guide to buying off plan sets out how the reservation, contract and bank guarantee stages work. Arroyo Vaquero adds an Estepona VPO housing layer to a part of Estepona that was already growing faster than anywhere else in the town, and it does so without adding to the free market supply that a resale owner competes with.

The regional decree that let Estepona move quickly

None of this would be moving at its current speed without a change from Seville. Decree Law 1/2025, the Junta de Andalucía’s package of urgent housing measures, lets a municipality build public rental housing on land zoned for facilities without first modifying its general plan. A general plan modification is the slowest step in Spanish planning and routinely takes years. Removing it changes what a council can promise within a single term of office, and it is the reason Estepona VPO housing has moved faster than anything comparable in the province.

Estepona signed up to the decree in April 2025 and its technicians spent the following months going parcel by parcel through the municipal land register to find sites where the surrounding facilities were already provided by other public land nearby. That work produced the list of 36 parcels approved unanimously on 19 February, and the 738 home capacity attached to it. The plenary vote was cross party, which matters for anyone assessing whether the programme survives the next election, and the parcels are spread across the whole municipal area rather than concentrated in one district.

Why the town hall is pushing Estepona VPO housing now

The mayor, José María García Urbano, has been direct about his reasons. In January he said the main concern he has as mayor is housing, and he set the plan against what he called the disastrous management of the councils that preceded him before 2011. His account is that those administrations sold every municipal parcel reserved for protected housing to the promoters of the partial plans without requiring the 30% protected quota. By his count the town lost the chance to build more than 1,500 protected homes as a result.

The first time his own administration obtained land for the purpose it ceded it for the 100 protected homes built at Juan Benítez, and until the decree arrived it had no other public land to work with. That history explains the shape of Estepona VPO housing today. The council is using facilities land it already owns, land it sold cheaply to a non profit, a private partial plan with a protected quota attached, and state funding, because those are the four routes left to a town whose original protected land was sold a generation ago.

It also sits alongside the 20% cut to the IBI rate in Estepona for 2026, the seafront and old town regeneration of the last decade, and a general plan that keeps approving growth to the west. Taken together they describe a council that expects the town to keep attracting residents, and is trying to keep the people who work in it living in it. Our Estepona property market report tracks the transaction and price side of the same story quarter by quarter.

What Estepona VPO housing does for the free market

Estepona runs on hospitality, construction and services, and most of the people who work in those sectors have been priced out of buying anywhere near where they work. When that gap gets too wide a resort town loses staff to longer commutes, wages climb to compensate, or service quality slips as turnover rises. Estepona VPO housing keeps that workforce in the town, and a council that houses its workforce locally protects the restaurants, the marina and the standard of service that international buyers pay for. That dividend lasts longer than any single new promenade.

The protected units also arrive without competing with the free market stock. A resale owner in Estepona is not selling against a subsidised flat in Camino de Cortes, and a buyer of a villa in Benahavís or an apartment on the New Golden Mile gains a deeper local economy underneath the purchase. Across Andalucía resale prices are already outrunning new build, as our post on the Andalucía housing market explains, and with Estepona VPO housing the town is one of the few municipalities on the coast adding supply at both ends of the market at once.

We hold development records for Estepona built up over years, including community fee data on the constructed developments and pricelists across the New Golden Mile, and we set every new scheme against them before we advise on it. Nobody can price the effect of a programme like this on a specific street from a press release, but we can tell you what comparable stock in the same district has actually done, which is the useful version of that answer. Tell us what you are looking for and we will show you where the numbers point.

How we read the Estepona VPO housing timetable

Municipal housing programmes in Spain have a long record of running behind their own announcements, and Estepona has a better record than most on this coast for keeping projects moving. The Camino de Cortes Sur licence is the milestone to watch first, followed by the award of the Camino de Cortes Norte tender and the first of the four rental parcels. Each of those is a public act with a date on it. We track Estepona VPO housing milestones as part of our Estepona work, so the client hears about them before the press does.

The structural changes underneath the programme are the durable part. A unanimous change of use on 36 parcels, adhesion to a regional decree and a partial plan with a protected quota written into it are legal instruments, and reversing them takes more than a change of priorities. So while 1,200 units of Estepona VPO housing is a target rather than a delivered outcome, it is a target with land, law and money behind it, which is more than most Andalusian towns can say.

If you own in Estepona and want to understand what the next five years of supply do to your position, start with a valuation and we will set it against our own data. If you are buying, the buyers guide covers the process and the Q1 2026 market report covers the market, and we will do the checking on any specific development for you.

The Costa del Sol property market continues to evolve, but informed decisions begin with reliable data. Download the JUST Q1 2026 Marbella Property Market Report today and gain exclusive insight into one of Europe’s most resilient and internationally driven residential markets.

Research enquiries:
James Evans — Managing Partner
📞 +34 643 390 376 | ✉️ james@justrealestate.es

Sales enquiries:
Alina Nouaimeh — Partner
📞 +34 600 689 749 | ✉️ alina@justrealestate.es

FAQ

Is the JUST Market Report free to download?

Yes. The report is available as a complimentary download and provides professional analysis of the Marbella, Estepona and Benahávis property markets.

Who is the report designed for?

The report is written for buyers, sellers, investors, developers, relocation clients, family offices and anyone seeking accurate, data-led insight into the Costa del Sol property market.

Where does the data come from?

Our analysis uses official information from Registradores de España, INE, Notariado, Tinsa, Banco de España and other recognised industry sources, combined with our own market observations and research.

How often is the report updated?

JUST Real Estate publishes a comprehensive market report every quarter, ensuring readers have access to the latest available market intelligence.

Our latest listings

View our latest listings of luxury properties for sale, where sophistication and comfort come together for an exceptional living experience.

Mijas Pueblo · JUST-00992P

4 bedroom villa for sale in Mijas Pueblo, Mijas

• 4 beds
• 4 baths
• Plot: 580 m²
• Interior: 150 m²

€2,250,000

Mijas · JUST-239312

4 bedroom villa for sale in Mijas

• 4 beds
• 4 baths
• Plot: 580 m²
• Interior: 150 m²

€2,050,000

Mijas · CP82828

2 bedroom apartment for sale in Mijas

• 2 beds
• 2 baths

€649,000

Mijas · 5859MLV

6 bedroom villa for sale in Mijas

• 6 beds
• 4 baths
• Plot: 658 m²
• Interior: 360 m²

€1,395,000

Valtocado - Mijas · 428-05408P

5 bedroom house for sale in Valtocado, Mijas

• 5 beds
• 4 baths
• Plot: 41,000 m²
• Interior: 378 m²

€2,600,000

Mijas Pueblo · MOJO26006

4 bedroom villa for sale in Mijas Pueblo, Mijas

• 4 beds
• 4 baths
• Plot: 1,974 m²

€2,250,000

Mijas La Nueva · RHS44

Plot for sale in Mijas La Nueva, Mijas

• Plot: 804 m²

€465,000

Loma del Flamenco - Mijas · 361-12699P

Plot for sale in Loma del Flamenco, Mijas

• Plot: 847 m²

€250,000

Mijas · 855-00152P

Plot for sale in Mijas

• Plot: 997 m²

€395,000

Mijas · 855-00151P

Plot for sale in Mijas

• Plot: 1,930 m²

€500,000

Mijas · 855-00150P

Plot for sale in Mijas

• Plot: 1,613 m²

€595,000

Mijas · 855-00149P

Plot for sale in Mijas

• Plot: 675 m²

€395,000

We work in this segment every day, and the number still landed. It confirms with a national dataset what our own Marbella property market report has been showing quarter after quarter, that the buyer for a home above three million euros in Spain is, more often than not, choosing between Marbella, Benahavís and Estepona rather than between Spain and somewhere else. The Costa del Sol luxury property market is where that decision lands.

The numbers behind the Costa del Sol luxury property market

At the one million euro line the picture is competitive. Spain had 46,454 homes listed above a million euros in June, and Málaga and Madrid tie at 20% each, with the Balearics at 17%, Barcelona and Alicante at 12% apiece and Girona at 5%. Six provinces hold 86% of every million euro home in the country, and the rest of Spain shares the remaining 14%.

Move the threshold to three million euros and Madrid falls away. Málaga carries more than double the capital’s count, 3,671 listings against 1,830, and the Balearics sit in between. Thirteen provinces have nothing at all above three million, and Soria and Palencia have nothing above one million. Wealth in Spanish housing sits on two coasts and in one capital, and at the very top it sits here.

These are listings, not sales, and the distinction matters when you read them. A listing count measures what owners are offering at a price, so a province with a deep new build pipeline and a confident set of sellers will show a large number even in a quiet quarter. What it cannot show is how many of those 3,671 villas complete at anything near the asking figure. For that you need the deeds, which is why our own reporting works from registered completions and treats portal counts as the temperature of the market rather than its price.

The reason Málaga pulls away as the price rises is what each market is actually selling. Madrid sells premium apartments in a dense capital, and a great apartment on Calle Serrano tops out where the building does. The Costa del Sol luxury property market sells detached villas on plots of two, three or five thousand square metres in Sierra Blanca, La Zagaleta and along the Golden Mile, and a villa has no ceiling of that kind. Once you count homes above three million, you are mostly counting villas, and Spain builds its villas here.

Who is buying at the top of the Costa del Sol luxury property market

The buyer above three million euros on this coast is international, and the demand is a want rather than a need. Nobody has to own a villa in Marbella. Buyers from London, Stockholm, Dubai and increasingly the Americas want the climate, the direct flights into Málaga and a community of people like themselves, and once they have decided on southern Europe they are comparing Marbella with the Côte d’Azur and the Algarve, not with Madrid.

Málaga airport does most of the work that Madrid’s address book cannot. It now runs more direct international routes than at any point in its history, so a buyer in Zurich or Riyadh treats a villa in Benahavís as a second home they can reach for a long weekend. Madrid cannot offer that, however good the apartment. That is why the foreign buyer share in Málaga province runs at more than double the national average, and why the ultra prime stock keeps growing here rather than in the interior.

The tightening of golden visa routes across Europe changed less than the headlines suggested. Buyers at this level were rarely buying for a residence permit in the first place, and the ones who need one still have workable routes into Spain. The Costa del Sol luxury property market grew above three million euros through that whole period, which tells you the appeal runs deeper than any one scheme.

New build keeps the Costa del Sol luxury property market growing

The Costa del Sol luxury property market is not only resales changing hands. Marbella, Benahavís and the corridor towards Estepona keep delivering new, architect led villas, and a finished new villa with a five year structural guarantee lists at a premium over the comparable house built in 1995. Every completion in the hills above the Golden Mile or in the gated estates of Benahavís adds another listing to the top bracket, and the pipeline behind those completions is deep.

Branded residences add to it, because hotel operators and fashion houses now attach their names to apartments and villas on the Costa del Sol in a way they do nowhere else in Spain, and those schemes launch at prices that would have looked improbable five years ago. Our guide to branded residences sets out how the premium works and where it holds on resale.

Selling a villa into the Costa del Sol luxury property market

A 35% national share is good news for an owner and it also means competition. There are 3,671 other listings above three million euros in the province, so the villa that sells within a sensible window is the one that is priced against closed transactions rather than against the asking prices around it. Buyers at this level are well travelled and well advised, and they compare your house with three others in the same week. The asking price is the first thing they test.

We price from the deeds and from our own record of what has actually completed in each urbanisation, built up over years, rather than from portal averages. That is the difference between an asking price a buyer takes seriously and one they discount on sight. If you own in this bracket, our sellers’ guide explains how we prepare a prime villa for market, and the valuation calculator gives a first reading before we come and see it.

Presentation carries more weight in the Costa del Sol luxury property market than in any other segment. The first viewing takes place on a phone in another country, and a villa photographed properly, staged properly and described accurately reaches the shortlist. One that is not does not get a second look, however good the house.

Timing matters less than owners fear. Demand at this level does not follow the school calendar or the summer season, because the buyer flies in when the shortlist is ready, so a villa priced and presented correctly sells in February as readily as in June. The market report carries the quarter by quarter completions that show it.

What the depth of the market gives a buyer

The scale of the Costa del Sol luxury property market is a buyer’s advantage before it is anything else. A budget of four million euros buys a beachside apartment at Puerto Banús, a hillside villa in Sierra Blanca, a golf frontage estate in Benahavís or a new build towards Estepona, and the buyer chooses between them on merit rather than settling because supply is thin. Very few markets in Europe offer that breadth at this price, and none of them offer it with three hundred days of sun and an airport forty minutes away.

Depth also supports resale. A market with thousands of active buyers above three million euros gives an owner a route out that a thin market cannot, which is why we treat a villa here as a liquid asset rather than a lifestyle purchase alone. That liquidity is not theoretical. We have resold villas for clients within eighteen months of purchase at a profit, and the depth of the buyer pool is what made it possible. Our Marbella buyers’ guide covers the mechanics from reservation to completion, and the current stock is on our properties page.

Benahavís is a large part of the growth

International attention gravitates to the Golden Mile and Puerto Banús, and a meaningful share of the growth in the three million euro count is happening a short drive inland. Benahavís offers larger plots, golf frontage and privacy that the coastal strip cannot, so buyers who want the climate and the flights without the density go there first, and the gated estates above the Golf Valley now hold some of the highest priced homes in the Costa del Sol luxury property market, and the Benahavís market report tracks how those prices have moved.

That spread of product is part of why the Costa del Sol luxury property market has proved resilient. The three million euro stock in Málaga province spans beachfront apartments, hillside villas, golf estates and new schemes towards Estepona, and the Costa del Sol luxury property market absorbs all of them. A buyer who rules out one micro location has three genuine alternatives inside the same market rather than needing to leave Spain.

Why the Costa del Sol luxury property market lead is structural

Currency helps at the margin. Buyers converting from sterling, dollars or dollar pegged Gulf currencies have found villas in the Costa del Sol luxury property market comparing well against the south of France and coastal Italy for most of the past decade, before counting the lower running costs. It is a tailwind, and we say so. Currency alone would not produce a 35% national share, and it has not.

Málaga built this position over years, through the airport, through sustained new build in the prime corridor between Marbella and Benahavís, and through a widening base of buyers who first came as tourists and returned as owners. Cyclical markets swing when one driver reverses. What idealista’s data shows is a gap between this coast and every other Spanish region that has widened through several cycles, which is a different and far more durable kind of lead.

Prices and volumes will not move in a straight line, and the ultra prime segment has quieter quarters like any other. The share of Spain’s three million euro stock that sits here reflects decades of infrastructure and reputation that a soft quarter does not unwind. Our Q1 2026 report sets out where prime transactions actually completed this year, and that is the base we advise from.

The Costa del Sol property market continues to evolve, but informed decisions begin with reliable data. Download the JUST Q1 2026 Marbella Property Market Report today and gain exclusive insight into one of Europe’s most resilient and internationally driven residential markets.

Research enquiries:
James Evans — Managing Partner
📞 +34 643 390 376 | ✉️ james@justrealestate.es

Sales enquiries:
Alina Nouaimeh — Partner
📞 +34 600 689 749 | ✉️ alina@justrealestate.es

FAQ

Is the JUST Market Report free to download?

Yes. The report is available as a complimentary download and provides professional analysis of the Marbella, Estepona and Benahávis property markets.

Who is the report designed for?

The report is written for buyers, sellers, investors, developers, relocation clients, family offices and anyone seeking accurate, data-led insight into the Costa del Sol property market.

Where does the data come from?

Our analysis uses official information from Registradores de España, INE, Notariado, Tinsa, Banco de España and other recognised industry sources, combined with our own market observations and research.

How often is the report updated?

JUST Real Estate publishes a comprehensive market report every quarter, ensuring readers have access to the latest available market intelligence.

Our latest listings

View our latest listings of luxury properties for sale, where sophistication and comfort come together for an exceptional living experience.

Mijas Pueblo · JUST-00992P

4 bedroom villa for sale in Mijas Pueblo, Mijas

• 4 beds
• 4 baths
• Plot: 580 m²
• Interior: 150 m²

€2,250,000

Mijas · JUST-239312

4 bedroom villa for sale in Mijas

• 4 beds
• 4 baths
• Plot: 580 m²
• Interior: 150 m²

€2,050,000

Mijas · CP82828

2 bedroom apartment for sale in Mijas

• 2 beds
• 2 baths

€649,000

Mijas · 5859MLV

6 bedroom villa for sale in Mijas

• 6 beds
• 4 baths
• Plot: 658 m²
• Interior: 360 m²

€1,395,000

Valtocado - Mijas · 428-05408P

5 bedroom house for sale in Valtocado, Mijas

• 5 beds
• 4 baths
• Plot: 41,000 m²
• Interior: 378 m²

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Mijas Pueblo · MOJO26006

4 bedroom villa for sale in Mijas Pueblo, Mijas

• 4 beds
• 4 baths
• Plot: 1,974 m²

€2,250,000

Mijas La Nueva · RHS44

Plot for sale in Mijas La Nueva, Mijas

• Plot: 804 m²

€465,000

Loma del Flamenco - Mijas · 361-12699P

Plot for sale in Loma del Flamenco, Mijas

• Plot: 847 m²

€250,000

Mijas · 855-00152P

Plot for sale in Mijas

• Plot: 997 m²

€395,000

Mijas · 855-00151P

Plot for sale in Mijas

• Plot: 1,930 m²

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Plot for sale in Mijas

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Plot for sale in Mijas

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The figures come from the INE’s Estadística Continua de Población, the quarterly count that has replaced the old annual padrón as the first read on who lives where. They are provisional, as every first release is, but they revise by small amounts rather than by direction, and the Costa del Sol population growth they record has run the same way in every release since the series began. The Málaga and Marbella breakdown below follows El Español’s reading of the same release, published on 7 August 2026.

Costa del Sol population growth in the INE numbers

Foreign nationals delivered 93.5% of Málaga’s increase. Their number rose from 69,892 to 75,476 between January 2025 and January 2026, a gain of 5,584 people and 7.99% in twelve months, and they now make up 12.5% of the city, roughly one resident in eight. Barcelona added more foreign residents in raw numbers, 6,460 against Málaga’s 5,584, but on a base six times larger, so its foreign population grew 1.5% while Málaga’s grew close to 8%.

That puts Málaga fifth among Spanish capitals for foreign residents, behind Madrid at 662,994, Barcelona at 444,123, Valencia at 172,387 and Alicante at 82,746, and ahead of Sevilla, Murcia, Bilbao and Valladolid. Five years earlier, on 1 January 2021, the city counted 578,063 people, so the half decade has added 25,081. Costa del Sol population growth is not a bounce from one favourable year. The INE series shows the same direction every quarter since the count began.

Marbella, where almost a third of residents are foreign

The provincial capital takes the headlines, but the figures that matter to our clients sit forty minutes down the A-7. Marbella rose from 160,478 to 162,155 residents over the same year, and its foreign population climbed from 49,813 to 51,389. Every one of the 1,677 people the town gained is accounted for by foreign nationals, with room to spare, because the Spanish national count moved the other way.

That is Costa del Sol population growth in its purest form. A town of 162,000 people, at the end of a motorway rather than at the centre of a labour market, still adding residents at more than 1% a year, almost all of them from outside Spain.

Put those two numbers together and 31.7% of Marbella is now foreign, against 12.5% in Málaga city and 14.6% nationally. Marbella did not become an international town this year. It has been one for fifty years, and the latest INE release confirms that the share is still rising rather than settling. In Benahávis and Estepona the same pattern holds at different scales, and in the gated urbanisations above the Golden Mile the foreign share runs far higher than the municipal average.

We see it in our own enquiry book before the statisticians see it in theirs. The buyers who complete on this coast increasingly already live on it, renting for a year or two while they find the right house, and the INE count picks them up the moment they register. Costa del Sol population growth and our pipeline are the same people at different points in the same journey.

Why Costa del Sol population growth beats sales figures as a demand signal

Transaction volumes and asking prices describe deals that have already happened. A population count describes the pressure building underneath them, usually a year or more before it shows in the quarterly market data. Every new resident needs a home on the day they arrive, whether they rent or buy, and that pressure lands on the existing stock immediately, because nobody builds a flat in the time it takes to register at the town hall.

The compounding matters more than the first move. A family that arrives and rents brings parents who visit, friends who stay, colleagues who relocate, and in our experience a meaningful number of those visitors become buyers within three years. Costa del Sol population growth therefore feeds itself. Reading the INE figures beside our own enquiry records, the municipalities with sustained resident growth show broader and more durable buyer interest than the ones that had a good quarter of sales without the people behind it.

The rental market is where Costa del Sol population growth shows first. A newly registered household rents before it buys, so long term rents in Málaga city and Marbella tighten in the same quarter the count rises, and the purchase enquiry follows twelve to twenty four months later. Anyone reading only the sales data sees the second step and misses the first.

The first quarter of 2026 showed exactly that. Volumes across the province held up while the interior of Spain softened, and the difference was demand from people who had already decided to live here rather than from investors deciding whether to. Our Q1 2026 report has the transaction detail, municipality by municipality.

Two streams feeding Costa del Sol population growth

The INE release does not split municipal growth by nationality, but the national picture tells you what is happening. Across Spain the largest inflows in the final quarter of 2025 came from Colombia, Venezuela and Morocco, and Spain passed ten million foreign born residents for the first time. That is working age migration into the labour market, and on this coast it is concentrated in construction, hospitality and the services that keep the lifestyle economy running.

Layered over it is the older flow that built Marbella, buyers and retirees from the United Kingdom, Scandinavia, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium, joined in the last five years by the Gulf, the Americas and, since the residency routes changed, a rising number of non European families who move here first and buy second. Costa del Sol population growth is both streams at once, and they land on different parts of the market.

The first stream sustains rental demand and the protected housing programmes the councils are now expanding, which we covered in the Andalucía resale and new build piece. The second sustains the mid and upper resale and new build market our clients transact in. Treat them as one wave and you misread where the pressure sits. Treat them as two and the rental yields in Málaga city and the villa prices in Nueva Andalucía suddenly explain each other.

How Costa del Sol population growth compares with the rest of Spain

Spain grew by 81,520 people in the fourth quarter of 2025 to reach 49,570,725, the highest figure in the historical series, and by 442,428 over the year. Foreign nationals rose by 56,431 in the quarter to 7,243,561 while Spanish nationals rose by 25,089. Population grew in every autonomous community except the Balearic Islands, and the largest quarterly increases were in the Comunitat Valenciana, Castilla-La Mancha and Madrid.

Against that backdrop Málaga stands out for capturing far more than its share. It is Spain’s sixth largest city, yet in raw numbers it added more people over the year than the capital did. Andalucía as a whole grew only modestly in the quarter, which means the region’s growth is concentrated on this stretch of coast rather than spread across it. Costa del Sol population growth is a local pull, climate, an established international community and an airport with direct flights to most of northern Europe, sitting inside a national trend rather than riding on it. Madrid grows because it is the capital. Málaga grows because people choose it.

Housing supply and how the councils are responding

A city adding six thousand residents a year and a town adding sixteen hundred cannot house them in stock that already exists without moving prices. The councils know it. Marbella’s building licence reform this year, which took most works under €15,000 out of the licence queue, and Estepona’s expanded protected housing programme are both municipal answers to the Costa del Sol population growth the INE count describes. Neither will change the arithmetic quickly. New supply takes three to five years from licence to key, and the people arriving now need somewhere to live this year.

For owners, Costa del Sol population growth is the strongest medium term support a market can have. Demand from people who live here is stickier than demand from investors who could live anywhere, and it does not switch off when a currency moves. If you are weighing a sale, the valuation calculator gives a first read on where a property sits, and our sales team will set it against the closed transactions rather than the asking prices.

For buyers the message is the mirror image. Waiting for prices to soften in a market with this much Costa del Sol population growth behind it has a cost of its own, because the people driving the demand are not waiting. The buyers’ guide sets out how a purchase runs here, and if you tell us what you are looking for we will show you the properties that fit before they reach the portals.

What five years of Costa del Sol population growth looks like on the ground

Percentages hide the physical scale. Málaga city alone added 25,081 people between January 2021 and January 2026, roughly the population of Nerja moving into a single municipality in half a decade, and the province added many times that. Every one of them lives somewhere, in a rented flat in Teatinos, a first purchase in Rincón de la Victoria, or a considered lifestyle purchase on the Golden Mile funded by a career somewhere colder. Costa del Sol population growth is those households, one at a time, each of them a tenant or a buyer within weeks of arriving.

This is why we read the population release before we read the price index. Prices and cranes are downstream of people, and the INE count is the earliest honest signal of where the market is going. The next release covers 1 April 2026 and we will set it against our own enquiry data again when it lands. If you want to know what Costa del Sol population growth means for one street, one urbanisation or one house, that is the conversation we have every day, and we would rather have it with you before the next quarter’s figures make the same point.

The Costa del Sol property market continues to evolve, but informed decisions begin with reliable data. Download the JUST Q1 2026 Marbella Property Market Report today and gain exclusive insight into one of Europe’s most resilient and internationally driven residential markets.

Research enquiries:
James Evans — Managing Partner
📞 +34 643 390 376 | ✉️ james@justrealestate.es

Sales enquiries:
Alina Nouaimeh — Partner
📞 +34 600 689 749 | ✉️ alina@justrealestate.es

FAQ

Is the JUST Market Report free to download?

Yes. The report is available as a complimentary download and provides professional analysis of the Marbella, Estepona and Benahávis property markets.

Who is the report designed for?

The report is written for buyers, sellers, investors, developers, relocation clients, family offices and anyone seeking accurate, data-led insight into the Costa del Sol property market.

Where does the data come from?

Our analysis uses official information from Registradores de España, INE, Notariado, Tinsa, Banco de España and other recognised industry sources, combined with our own market observations and research.

How often is the report updated?

JUST Real Estate publishes a comprehensive market report every quarter, ensuring readers have access to the latest available market intelligence.

Our latest listings

View our latest listings of luxury properties for sale, where sophistication and comfort come together for an exceptional living experience.

Mijas Pueblo · JUST-00992P

4 bedroom villa for sale in Mijas Pueblo, Mijas

• 4 beds
• 4 baths
• Plot: 580 m²
• Interior: 150 m²

€2,250,000

Mijas · JUST-239312

4 bedroom villa for sale in Mijas

• 4 beds
• 4 baths
• Plot: 580 m²
• Interior: 150 m²

€2,050,000

Mijas · CP82828

2 bedroom apartment for sale in Mijas

• 2 beds
• 2 baths

€649,000

Mijas · 5859MLV

6 bedroom villa for sale in Mijas

• 6 beds
• 4 baths
• Plot: 658 m²
• Interior: 360 m²

€1,395,000

Valtocado - Mijas · 428-05408P

5 bedroom house for sale in Valtocado, Mijas

• 5 beds
• 4 baths
• Plot: 41,000 m²
• Interior: 378 m²

€2,600,000

Mijas Pueblo · MOJO26006

4 bedroom villa for sale in Mijas Pueblo, Mijas

• 4 beds
• 4 baths
• Plot: 1,974 m²

€2,250,000

Mijas La Nueva · RHS44

Plot for sale in Mijas La Nueva, Mijas

• Plot: 804 m²

€465,000

Loma del Flamenco - Mijas · 361-12699P

Plot for sale in Loma del Flamenco, Mijas

• Plot: 847 m²

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Mijas · 855-00152P

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• Plot: 997 m²

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Mijas · 855-00151P

Plot for sale in Mijas

• Plot: 1,930 m²

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Resale outrunning new build is unusual and it is the most useful thing in the release. It is also the clearest signal the Andalucía housing market has given in two years. New build normally leads, because it is newer, better specified and sold by people whose job is to hold a price. When the older stock is rising faster than the new, something has gone wrong with supply rather than right with demand.

Why resale is leading the Andalucía housing market

The explanation is that there is not enough new build to lead with. Completions across Andalucía have run well below household formation for most of a decade, and the schemes that do finish are concentrated in a handful of coastal municipalities. Everywhere else a buyer who wants to move is competing for a home that already exists.

That pushes the whole weight of demand onto the resale market, and resale pricing responds faster than new build pricing because it is set by thousands of individual sellers rather than by a few dozen developers with a price list to defend. When a market tightens, resale moves first and it moves further.

It also means the headline rate understates what is happening in the parts of the Andalucía housing market people actually want. A regional index averages Almería with Málaga, and inland Jaén with the coast. The coastal figure sits well above the regional one, which is why the index is a direction of travel rather than a valuation. The coastal part of the Andalucía housing market has not behaved like the regional average for a decade.

What an Andalucía housing market index actually measures

The INE index is a price index, not an average price. It measures how much the same kind of property has moved, which is a different question from what anything costs. A 13.3% annual figure for Andalucía does not mean a flat in Málaga is 13.3% dearer than the one next door was last year, and it certainly does not mean any individual property has gained that.

It is also regional. The INE does not publish a municipal series, so anybody quoting an index figure for Marbella or Estepona has taken a regional number and attached a town name to it. We do not do that, and it is worth noticing when somebody else does.

For a town level picture the honest sources are the deeds themselves, through the Notariado, and the registration volumes from Registradores. Those tell you what actually changed hands and at what value, and they are what our quarterly report is built on.

The Costa del Sol version of the Andalucía housing market

On the coast the pattern is the same shape and a good deal sharper. Marbella, Estepona and Benahavís recorded 1,566 residential sales in the first quarter, 30.2% fewer than a year earlier on Registradores figures, while pricing held. Resale accounted for 90.3% of those transactions against 9.7% for new build.

That ratio is the whole argument in one line. Nine in ten purchases on this coast are of a home that already exists, in a market where international buyers consistently say they want something new. The Andalucía housing market is not short of demand for new build, it is short of finished new build to sell.

We covered the quarter itself in more detail in the Q1 2026 Costa del Sol figures, including the town by town split and why Estepona fell further than Marbella. This post is about why the composition looks the way it does rather than about the volume, because the composition is the part that tells you what to do next.

Financing has improved and it changes the interior more than the coast

Euribor fell to 2.34% by the first quarter of 2026 and average Spanish mortgage rates to 2.99%, both continuing a decline that has run for over a year. For a domestic buyer in Seville or Granada that is the single biggest change in their position since 2022, and it is why the interior of the region is picking up at all.

On the coast it matters much less, because a large share of purchases are made without a mortgage. Cheaper money still helps indirectly, by speeding up the chain of transactions underneath a prime sale, but it is not what decides whether a villa in Benahavís trades.

The result is that the two halves of the Andalucía housing market respond to entirely different inputs. One is a rates story and one is a supply and currency story, and a change that moves one of them can leave the other completely unaffected. Reading one rate cut as a signal for both is how most forecasts for this region go wrong.

Foreign demand is what splits the Andalucía housing market

Málaga Province recorded a foreign buyer participation rate of 34.3% in the first quarter against a national average of 13.92%. More than one purchase in three, against roughly one in seven nationally. No other part of Andalucía comes close to that concentration, and no other part of the Andalucía housing market prices the way Málaga does because of it.

It matters because foreign demand is not rate sensitive in the way domestic demand is. A buyer moving equity from another country and paying cash is not waiting on Euribor, so the coastal market keeps clearing through periods when the interior slows. That is the real reason the Andalucía housing market splits so cleanly between the coast and everywhere else.

The composition of that demand has also widened. British buyers remain the largest single group nationally, with Dutch, German, Italian, French and Polish purchasers close behind, and growing volumes from North America and the Gulf. A market spread across that many economies does not turn on one of them having a bad year.

What the Andalucía housing market pipeline does not contain

The supply answer, if there is one, arrives slowly. Land with planning consent, a licence and a builder is a three to four year proposition even when everything goes right, and on this coast a good deal of the land with sea views is either built, protected or tied up in a planning process that has been running for years. Nothing about the next twelve months changes the number of finished homes available in 2027.

What does change is the mix. The schemes that complete are overwhelmingly at the upper end, because that is what pencils when land and construction cost what they now cost. A region with a genuine shortage of ordinary housing keeps delivering expensive housing, which widens the gap between the index and what a local buyer experiences.

That is the structural fact underneath every number in this post. The Andalucía housing market is not tight because of a cycle, it is tight because the pipeline that would loosen it does not exist yet. Anybody waiting for supply to solve their pricing problem is waiting for something that has not been started.

An Andalucía housing market running at two speeds

Set the coastal strip aside and the Andalucía housing market looks like a normal Spanish region. Prices are rising because supply is tight, buyers are largely domestic, and mortgage conditions matter a great deal. Seville, Granada and Córdoba are all recognisably that market, and all three are strengthening as borrowing gets cheaper rather than as buyers arrive.

The coastal municipalities are something else. They compete for buyers with the south of France and the Algarve rather than with the rest of Andalucía, they price in relation to those places, and their supply constraint is planning rather than money. Averaging the two produces a number that describes neither.

This is the single most common error in coverage of the region, and it runs in both directions. A regional slowdown gets reported as a coastal one, and a coastal boom gets reported as a regional one. Anyone deciding where to put money needs the two separated, which is the whole reason we publish town level figures rather than regional ones.

Where the Andalucía housing market leaves a buyer

If the resale stock is what is rising fastest, then the resale stock is where the competition is, and the sensible response is to be quicker and better prepared rather than to wait for a correction that the supply picture does not support. Good resale in the established areas does not sit for long at a sensible price. The Andalucía housing market has spent three years teaching people that lesson and it has not stopped.

The corollary is that homes needing work are where the negotiation still lives. They take longer to sell, they attract fewer bidders, and the gap between asking and achieved is wider on them than on anything turnkey. That is a genuine opportunity for a buyer willing to run a refurbishment, and it is a larger part of the market here than most people expect.

The running costs are where that calculation is usually won or lost, and they are municipal rather than regional. Estepona has just cut its property tax by 20% for registered residents, which is the sort of local detail an index will never show you. We hold the cost of ownership data for the constructed developments across this coast, built up over years, so a specific property can be set against comparable ones before anybody commits.

For anyone weighing it now, the Marbella market report and the Estepona report carry the town level figures, the buyer’s guide covers the costs that arrive with completion, and the current listings show what the range actually looks like in the Golden Mile, Estepona and Benahavís. If you are selling, our valuation calculator and the seller’s guide are the fastest way to see where you stand against this quarter rather than last year.

The Costa del Sol property market continues to evolve, but informed decisions begin with reliable data. Download the JUST Q1 2026 Marbella Property Market Report today and gain exclusive insight into one of Europe’s most resilient and internationally driven residential markets.

Research enquiries:
James Evans — Managing Partner
📞 +34 643 390 376 | ✉️ james@justrealestate.es

Sales enquiries:
Alina Nouaimeh — Partner
📞 +34 600 689 749 | ✉️ alina@justrealestate.es

FAQ

Is the JUST Market Report free to download?

Yes. The report is available as a complimentary download and provides professional analysis of the Marbella, Estepona and Benahávis property markets.

Who is the report designed for?

The report is written for buyers, sellers, investors, developers, relocation clients, family offices and anyone seeking accurate, data-led insight into the Costa del Sol property market.

Where does the data come from?

Our analysis uses official information from Registradores de España, INE, Notariado, Tinsa, Banco de España and other recognised industry sources, combined with our own market observations and research.

How often is the report updated?

JUST Real Estate publishes a comprehensive market report every quarter, ensuring readers have access to the latest available market intelligence.

Our latest listings

View our latest listings of luxury properties for sale, where sophistication and comfort come together for an exceptional living experience.

Mijas Pueblo · JUST-00992P

4 bedroom villa for sale in Mijas Pueblo, Mijas

• 4 beds
• 4 baths
• Plot: 580 m²
• Interior: 150 m²

€2,250,000

Mijas · JUST-239312

4 bedroom villa for sale in Mijas

• 4 beds
• 4 baths
• Plot: 580 m²
• Interior: 150 m²

€2,050,000

Mijas · CP82828

2 bedroom apartment for sale in Mijas

• 2 beds
• 2 baths

€649,000

Mijas · 5859MLV

6 bedroom villa for sale in Mijas

• 6 beds
• 4 baths
• Plot: 658 m²
• Interior: 360 m²

€1,395,000

Valtocado - Mijas · 428-05408P

5 bedroom house for sale in Valtocado, Mijas

• 5 beds
• 4 baths
• Plot: 41,000 m²
• Interior: 378 m²

€2,600,000

Mijas Pueblo · MOJO26006

4 bedroom villa for sale in Mijas Pueblo, Mijas

• 4 beds
• 4 baths
• Plot: 1,974 m²

€2,250,000

Mijas La Nueva · RHS44

Plot for sale in Mijas La Nueva, Mijas

• Plot: 804 m²

€465,000

Loma del Flamenco - Mijas · 361-12699P

Plot for sale in Loma del Flamenco, Mijas

• Plot: 847 m²

€250,000

Mijas · 855-00152P

Plot for sale in Mijas

• Plot: 997 m²

€395,000

Mijas · 855-00151P

Plot for sale in Mijas

• Plot: 1,930 m²

€500,000

Mijas · 855-00150P

Plot for sale in Mijas

• Plot: 1,613 m²

€595,000

Mijas · 855-00149P

Plot for sale in Mijas

• Plot: 675 m²

€395,000

The 20% applies to people who are empadronados in Estepona, meaning registered as living in the municipality. A great many owners on this stretch of coast are not, and for them the Estepona IBI bill lands in 2026 looking much as it did in 2025. That distinction is the whole story for anyone buying here as a second home.

What the Estepona IBI cut actually is

IBI, the impuesto sobre bienes inmuebles, is the annual local property tax every owner in Spain pays to the municipality where the property sits. It is calculated by applying a municipal rate to the valor catastral, the administrative value the Catastro holds for the property, which is not the market value and is usually a good deal below it.

A town can move only one half of that equation. The valor catastral is set nationally on a revision cycle, so when a council announces a cut it is cutting its own rate. Estepona has done exactly that, and because the rate is the multiplier, a 20% reduction in the rate produces roughly a 20% reduction in the Estepona IBI bill for a property whose catastral value has not moved. The mechanism is simple and it is worth knowing, because it is also why a cut can be quietly undone by a revision.

The council has budgeted €6.6 million for the reduction and more than €7 million for tax relief in total across 2026, which includes a rubbish charge exemption applied to 1,812 receipts. Those are the town’s own published figures and they are unusually specific, which is generally a sign that a council expects to be held to them. We will check the figures again when the receipts land.

Who the Estepona IBI reduction actually reaches

The Estepona IBI reduction is targeted at empadronados. Registering on the padrón is a municipal population record rather than a tax residency declaration, but the two are connected in practice, and registering has consequences well beyond a property tax bill. It affects healthcare access, school places, some regional benefits and, in combination with days spent in the country, the question of where you are tax resident.

That makes it a decision rather than a form. An owner who already lives here most of the year is very likely registered and will see the cut automatically. An owner who spends eight weeks a year in the property, keeps their main home in another country and pays tax there is in a different position entirely, and the €200 or €300 a year at stake is rarely the deciding factor. The maths and the decision are not the same thing here.

This is the part we would rather talk through than see somebody act on from a headline. Tell us how you use the property and where you pay tax and we will tell you what the Estepona IBI change is actually worth to you, and what registering would and would not alter. Where it crosses into tax residency we bring in an adviser we work with rather than guess.

Zero debt is what made the Estepona IBI cut possible

Estepona reached what the council calls zero debt in 2025, and the 2026 accounts are the first in fifteen years with no provision for inherited debt. The figure being retired was more than €300 million, accumulated before the current administration, and servicing it consumed a share of every budget for over a decade.

Removing that line is what created the room for a tax cut and for more than €27 million of productive investment in the same year. A council with no debt service has genuine discretion, and Estepona has chosen to spend part of it on an Estepona IBI reduction that residents feel annually rather than on something more visible.

For an owner the useful read is not the politics of it but the durability. A tax cut funded by borrowing reverses within a cycle. A tax cut funded by the permanent removal of a debt service line has a much better chance of still being there in five years, which is the horizon most people buying in Estepona are working to.

Where the rest of the budget goes

The headline number is €132 million, of which more than €27 million is earmarked for productive investment. Estepona has spent the last decade putting that sort of money into the public realm, and the results are the reason the town reads differently now than it did in 2013, from the paseo and the port to the pedestrianised centre.

That matters to property values in a way a tax cut does not. A €250 saving is pleasant and forgettable. A promenade that keeps extending, streets that are maintained and a town centre people actually walk through are what has moved Estepona from a place buyers considered because it was cheaper than Marbella to a place they choose first.

The counterweight is honest to state. Estepona has also permitted a great deal of new housing over the same period, and a town that keeps adding stock competes with its own resale market. We track what is standing for sale across the whole coast every week, and Estepona is consistently one of the deeper markets on it. That is a buyer’s advantage and a seller’s problem, and it is the honest counterweight to a good news budget.

Estepona IBI against its neighbours

Every municipality sets its own rate, so the same property carries a different bill on either side of a boundary. The Estepona IBI cut widens a gap that already existed with parts of the coast to the east, and it does so at the moment the town is competing hardest for the same buyers as the Golden Mile and Benahavís.

The gap is real but it is small against the other numbers in a purchase. Transfer tax, notary and registry costs, and the difference between two asking prices all dwarf an annual municipal charge. Nobody sensibly chooses a town on IBI, and anybody presenting it as a reason to buy somewhere is reaching.

Where it does earn its place is in the running cost of ownership, alongside community fees, basura and insurance. That total is what determines whether a holiday home is comfortable to hold or quietly irritating, and it is the figure most buyers discover after they have committed rather than before.

What a lower Estepona IBI bill is worth on a real property

On a typical apartment the annual Estepona IBI charge runs to a few hundred euros, so a 20% cut returns something in the order of a good dinner rather than a holiday. Stated plainly like that it sounds trivial, and as a single year it is. Very few owners will notice it on the year it arrives.

The Estepona IBI saving stops being trivial when it is capitalised. A recurring annual saving on a property held for fifteen or twenty years is a real number, and for anyone letting the property it lands directly in net yield, where the difference between a 4.1% and a 4.3% return is the difference between two very different conversations with a lender.

We hold the cost of ownership data for the constructed developments across Estepona, built up over years, which means the community fee, the basura and the Estepona IBI band for comparable schemes rather than an average pulled off a portal. Set a specific property against that and you get a running cost you can actually budget to before you commit.

What happens to the Estepona IBI bill when a property changes hands

The charge for a given year is owed by whoever owned the property on the first of January, which means the seller carries the legal liability for the whole of the year a sale completes in. What almost always happens in practice is that the parties apportion it, so the buyer reimburses the seller for the part of the year they will own the property. That apportionment is a matter of contract rather than law, and it is negotiable like anything else in the deal.

It is a small number and it is worth getting right anyway, because it is a reliable indicator of how the rest of a transaction is being handled. A seller who has the receipt to hand, knows the band and has the community certificate ready is usually a seller whose paperwork will survive a lawyer looking at it. One who cannot produce a current bill rarely turns out to be organised about anything else.

We check the position on every purchase we act on, alongside the community fee, the basura and whether anything owing has attached to the property rather than the person. Unpaid municipal charges follow the property in Spain, which is the single most expensive thing a buyer can fail to look at, and it is our job rather than yours.

The Estepona IBI mistakes that are easy to make

The single most common error we see is an owner assuming the headline applies to them. The Estepona IBI reduction is conditional, it is applied to the receipt rather than claimed, and an owner who is not registered will simply receive an ordinary bill and assume the cut never happened. It did happen, it just was not aimed at them.

The second is treating the valor catastral as a market valuation, which it is not. An Estepona IBI bill can rise in a year the council cuts its rate.

The valor catastral is neither a market figure nor a fixed one. It is neither, and a property whose catastral value is due a revision can see its bill rise in a year the council cuts its rate. The two move independently and only one of them is in the town’s hands.

The third is buying on running costs without checking what has been done to the property. Estepona is a town of refurbished apartments, and the rules on what needs a licence have just moved next door in Marbella. Work carried out without the right paperwork is a resale problem long after it is a tax one.

If you are weighing a purchase here, the Estepona market report sets out where prices and supply actually sit, the Q1 2026 picture covers the wider coast, and the buyer’s guide walks through the costs that arrive with completion. If you already own here, our valuation calculator and the seller’s guide are the quickest way to see what the last two years have done to your position, and the current listings show what you would be competing with.

The Costa del Sol property market continues to evolve, but informed decisions begin with reliable data. Download the JUST Q1 2026 Marbella Property Market Report today and gain exclusive insight into one of Europe’s most resilient and internationally driven residential markets.

Research enquiries:
James Evans — Managing Partner
📞 +34 643 390 376 | ✉️ james@justrealestate.es

Sales enquiries:
Alina Nouaimeh — Partner
📞 +34 600 689 749 | ✉️ alina@justrealestate.es

FAQ

Is the JUST Market Report free to download?

Yes. The report is available as a complimentary download and provides professional analysis of the Marbella, Estepona and Benahávis property markets.

Who is the report designed for?

The report is written for buyers, sellers, investors, developers, relocation clients, family offices and anyone seeking accurate, data-led insight into the Costa del Sol property market.

Where does the data come from?

Our analysis uses official information from Registradores de España, INE, Notariado, Tinsa, Banco de España and other recognised industry sources, combined with our own market observations and research.

How often is the report updated?

JUST Real Estate publishes a comprehensive market report every quarter, ensuring readers have access to the latest available market intelligence.

Our latest listings

View our latest listings of luxury properties for sale, where sophistication and comfort come together for an exceptional living experience.

Mijas Pueblo · JUST-00992P

4 bedroom villa for sale in Mijas Pueblo, Mijas

• 4 beds
• 4 baths
• Plot: 580 m²
• Interior: 150 m²

€2,250,000

Mijas · JUST-239312

4 bedroom villa for sale in Mijas

• 4 beds
• 4 baths
• Plot: 580 m²
• Interior: 150 m²

€2,050,000

Mijas · CP82828

2 bedroom apartment for sale in Mijas

• 2 beds
• 2 baths

€649,000

Mijas · 5859MLV

6 bedroom villa for sale in Mijas

• 6 beds
• 4 baths
• Plot: 658 m²
• Interior: 360 m²

€1,395,000

Valtocado - Mijas · 428-05408P

5 bedroom house for sale in Valtocado, Mijas

• 5 beds
• 4 baths
• Plot: 41,000 m²
• Interior: 378 m²

€2,600,000

Mijas Pueblo · MOJO26006

4 bedroom villa for sale in Mijas Pueblo, Mijas

• 4 beds
• 4 baths
• Plot: 1,974 m²

€2,250,000

Mijas La Nueva · RHS44

Plot for sale in Mijas La Nueva, Mijas

• Plot: 804 m²

€465,000

Loma del Flamenco - Mijas · 361-12699P

Plot for sale in Loma del Flamenco, Mijas

• Plot: 847 m²

€250,000

Mijas · 855-00152P

Plot for sale in Mijas

• Plot: 997 m²

€395,000

Mijas · 855-00151P

Plot for sale in Mijas

• Plot: 1,930 m²

€500,000

Mijas · 855-00150P

Plot for sale in Mijas

• Plot: 1,613 m²

€595,000

Mijas · 855-00149P

Plot for sale in Mijas

• Plot: 675 m²

€395,000

Those two numbers look like they belong to different markets, and the gap between them is most of what there is to understand about the Costa del Sol this year. Volume has come down hard from a genuinely exceptional run, and pricing in the Costa del Sol property market has not followed it. The reasons are visible in the same quarter’s data rather than a matter of opinion.

The Costa del Sol property market in numbers

The comparison quarter matters more than the percentage. Q4 2025 produced 2,446 sales across the three towns and Q1 2025 produced 2,243, both of them well above what the Costa del Sol property market used to turn over in three months. Measured against that, 1,566 is a sharp fall. Measured against the decade before the pandemic it is an ordinary first quarter. Which of those two sentences gets quoted usually depends on who is quoting it.

First quarters are also the weakest of the year here for reasons that have nothing to do with confidence. The buying season on the Costa del Sol runs from spring viewings to autumn completions. January to March therefore carries deals agreed in the quietest window of the year. Reading a Q1 number against a Q4 number compares the thinnest quarter with the fullest one.

What the figure does confirm is that the run of two exceptional years has ended. Anyone pricing a sale in the Costa del Sol on 2024 and 2025 transaction speed is pricing against conditions that are no longer in front of them, which is a different problem from a market in decline and needs a different answer.

The Costa del Sol property market did not fall evenly

Marbella recorded 842 sales, down 30.1% on the quarter and 27.4% on the year. Estepona recorded 598, down 43.8% on the quarter and 32.9% on the year. Benahavís recorded 126. The spread between Marbella and Estepona is the part worth sitting with, because the two towns are usually assumed to move as one within the Costa del Sol property market.

Estepona’s steeper fall is largely a new build story. The town has been delivering completed schemes in concentrated bursts, and a quarter in which several reach handover together posts a volume figure that the following quarter cannot repeat. That is a delivery calendar rather than a demand signal, and it reverses as soon as the next phase completes.

Benahavís behaves differently again because of its size. A hundred and twenty six sales in a quarter is a small enough number that two or three villa completions move the percentage, so quarterly swings there tell you very little on their own. It is one of the places where a percentage change is genuinely the wrong measure to quote.

Prices went the other way

National house prices reached record highs during the quarter, growing 14.3% annually, with Málaga Province at 13.1%. Both figures are Tinsa IMIE, measuring average price per square metre. Three years ago the same series had Spain at 4.1% and Málaga at 2.8%, so this is the third consecutive year of acceleration in the Costa del Sol property market rather than a single unusual quarter.

Falling volume alongside rising prices is normally a sign that supply is the binding constraint, and that is what the rest of the quarter’s data supports. There is no shortage of people who want to own on the Costa del Sol and there is a real shortage of finished homes in the places they want to own, particularly within walking distance of the sea.

Across the Costa del Sol that shows up as pricing that has held in prime locations while the number of deals has thinned. Well positioned homes are still finding buyers at the figures being asked. Homes that are overpriced or need serious work are sitting, and the gap between those two outcomes has widened noticeably since the middle of last year.

What the fall is measured against

Most of the argument about the Costa del Sol property market this year is really an argument about the base year. Choose Q4 2025 and the picture is a collapse. Choose Q1 2019 and the same quarter is a strong one. Neither comparison is dishonest, and which one gets used tends to reveal what the person quoting it wanted the number to prove in the first place.

The more useful reading is that the two years just gone were the anomaly. They combined post pandemic relocation, a weak euro against several buyer currencies, and a wave of off plan schemes reaching completion at once. Those three things arrived together and have now largely worked through, which is exactly what a return to normal volume looks like from the inside.

We track what is actually for sale across the agency networks on the Costa del Sol, week by week, and have done for years. Setting a quarter’s transaction data against what was standing in stock at the time is how we judge whether a slower Costa del Sol is a demand problem or a supply one. This quarter it reads as supply.

Resale is the market and new build is the shortage

Resale properties accounted for 90.3% of transactions in the quarter against 9.7% for new build. That is close to the long run composition of the Costa del Sol property market and it corrects the impression left by Q4 2025, when new build briefly reached 20.0% of sales because several developments reached handover in the same three months.

The low new build share is not weak demand for new build, it is the supply of completed units running out. Buyers who want a finished, energy efficient home with a warranty still outnumber the homes available in that description, which is why new build continues to command a premium over comparable resale stock.

For a buyer that changes where the opportunity sits. The competition is fiercest for the small number of completed new homes and considerably softer for good resale that needs updating, particularly now that Marbella has raised the threshold for licence free works to €15,000. The buyer’s guide sets out how that trade usually works out on real numbers.

Financing stopped being the obstacle

Euribor fell to 2.34% by the first quarter of 2026 and average Spanish mortgage rates to 2.99%, both continuing a decline that has run for more than a year. A buyer borrowing today is doing so on materially better terms than a buyer borrowing in early 2025, and that is one of the few inputs to this market that has moved in the buyer’s favour.

It matters less in the Costa del Sol property market than it would elsewhere, because a large share of purchases here are made without a mortgage at all. Where it does bite is at the lower end of the local market and among younger Spanish buyers, both of which have been priced out for several years and are slowly returning as monthly costs fall.

The effect on the top of the Costa del Sol property market is indirect but real, because cheaper money supports the whole chain of transactions underneath a prime sale. The speed of that chain is often what decides whether a villa buyer completes when they intended to rather than six months later.

The demand behind the numbers

Foreign buyers accounted for 34.3% of residential transactions in Málaga Province in the quarter against a Spanish national average of 13.92%, on Registradores and INE figures. More than one purchase in three on the Costa del Sol is made by someone who does not live in Spain, and that share has been climbing rather than settling.

The composition of that demand is what makes it durable. British buyers remain the largest single group nationally, followed closely by Dutch, German, Italian, French and Polish purchasers, with strong and growing interest from North America and the Gulf. No single currency or economy carries the market, which is a large part of why it does not turn as sharply as single nationality markets do.

Málaga airport handled 5.09 million passengers in the first quarter, up from roughly 4.4 million in the same quarter of 2023. Air connectivity is the single best leading indicator of second home demand on the Costa del Sol, because it decides how casually somebody in Manchester or Munich can come for a long weekend. It has grown in every one of the last three years.

Pricing into a slower Costa del Sol property market

The practical consequence of all this is that pricing has become the whole of the seller’s job again. In 2024 a wide range of asking prices found buyers because there were more buyers than homes in almost every bracket. In 2026 the range that works has narrowed, and a home priced outside it does not sell slowly, it sits.

The evidence for where that range sits is not in the asking prices on the portals, which are a record of hope rather than outcome. It is in what comparable homes actually completed at, which is why we keep our own record of both across the whole coast and update it every week. Ask us what a specific home is worth and you get the completions behind the figure.

For anyone selling in the Golden Mile, Estepona or the villa districts above the town, the useful exercise now is a realistic valuation against this quarter’s completions rather than last year’s. Our valuation calculator is the quick version and the seller’s guide covers the rest. For buyers, the current listings are the place to see how far the range has moved.

What the quarter does not support is the reading that the Costa del Sol property market has turned. Fewer sales at higher prices, with foreign demand rising, financing improving and air connectivity at a record, is a market working through an unusual two years rather than one losing its footing. We will publish the second quarter picture the same way, with the figures and their sources attached.

The Costa del Sol property market continues to evolve, but informed decisions begin with reliable data. Download the JUST Q1 2026 Marbella Property Market Report today and gain exclusive insight into one of Europe’s most resilient and internationally driven residential markets.

Research enquiries:
James Evans — Managing Partner
📞 +34 643 390 376 | ✉️ james@justrealestate.es

Sales enquiries:
Alina Nouaimeh — Partner
📞 +34 600 689 749 | ✉️ alina@justrealestate.es

FAQ

Is the JUST Market Report free to download?

Yes. The report is available as a complimentary download and provides professional analysis of the Marbella, Estepona and Benahávis property markets.

Who is the report designed for?

The report is written for buyers, sellers, investors, developers, relocation clients, family offices and anyone seeking accurate, data-led insight into the Costa del Sol property market.

Where does the data come from?

Our analysis uses official information from Registradores de España, INE, Notariado, Tinsa, Banco de España and other recognised industry sources, combined with our own market observations and research.

How often is the report updated?

JUST Real Estate publishes a comprehensive market report every quarter, ensuring readers have access to the latest available market intelligence.

Our latest listings

View our latest listings of luxury properties for sale, where sophistication and comfort come together for an exceptional living experience.

Mijas Pueblo · JUST-00992P

4 bedroom villa for sale in Mijas Pueblo, Mijas

• 4 beds
• 4 baths
• Plot: 580 m²
• Interior: 150 m²

€2,250,000

Mijas · JUST-239312

4 bedroom villa for sale in Mijas

• 4 beds
• 4 baths
• Plot: 580 m²
• Interior: 150 m²

€2,050,000

Mijas · CP82828

2 bedroom apartment for sale in Mijas

• 2 beds
• 2 baths

€649,000

Mijas · 5859MLV

6 bedroom villa for sale in Mijas

• 6 beds
• 4 baths
• Plot: 658 m²
• Interior: 360 m²

€1,395,000

Valtocado - Mijas · 428-05408P

5 bedroom house for sale in Valtocado, Mijas

• 5 beds
• 4 baths
• Plot: 41,000 m²
• Interior: 378 m²

€2,600,000

Mijas Pueblo · MOJO26006

4 bedroom villa for sale in Mijas Pueblo, Mijas

• 4 beds
• 4 baths
• Plot: 1,974 m²

€2,250,000

Mijas La Nueva · RHS44

Plot for sale in Mijas La Nueva, Mijas

• Plot: 804 m²

€465,000

Loma del Flamenco - Mijas · 361-12699P

Plot for sale in Loma del Flamenco, Mijas

• Plot: 847 m²

€250,000

Mijas · 855-00152P

Plot for sale in Mijas

• Plot: 997 m²

€395,000

Mijas · 855-00151P

Plot for sale in Mijas

• Plot: 1,930 m²

€500,000

Mijas · 855-00150P

Plot for sale in Mijas

• Plot: 1,613 m²

€595,000

Mijas · 855-00149P

Plot for sale in Mijas

• Plot: 675 m²

€395,000

This is the third time the ceiling has moved. It began at €6,000, went to €10,000 in 2018, and the new figure continues a pattern of adjusting the Marbella building licence rules every few years rather than overhauling them once a decade. Construction costs have risen faster than the threshold did, which is the honest reason the €10,000 line stopped covering what it was written to cover.

What the exemption covers

The ordinance calls them minor technical interventions, and the category is narrower than the name suggests. Bathroom renovations inside the existing footprint, replacement of windows and doors including upgrades to better glazing, and the installation of air conditioning units with their external equipment. Those three account for the overwhelming majority of what owners here actually spend money on between purchase and resale.

Under the current Marbella building licence ceiling, a decent bathroom in Marbella and a set of windows together will usually breach it, which means a formal licence for work that changes nothing structural. At €15,000 the same job clears the bar. That is the practical effect of the Marbella building licence change, and it is why the councillor framed it around administrative simplification rather than deregulation.

Why the town hall is raising it

Marbella’s Urbanismo department processes licence applications for the whole municipality, from the Golden Mile through Nueva Andalucía and San Pedro. Every bathroom refit that comes through the formal route consumes a case officer’s time on something that carries almost no planning risk. The council says the previous increases have already saved thousands of residents both the wait and a cost most of them considered out of proportion to the work.

There is a harder logic underneath the public reasoning. A department spending its capacity on window replacements is not spending it on the applications that genuinely need scrutiny, and Marbella has plenty of those. Raising the Marbella building licence ceiling moves officer time toward the larger schemes, the disputes and the backlog, which is where planning oversight actually earns its keep. None of that is a criticism of the department. It is a sensible piece of triage by a council that has more applications than officers, and owners are the ones who feel the benefit first.

It also arrives shortly after the town hall pushed through the first new General Plan in four decades, a far larger piece of reform that redraws zoning and development rights across Marbella. The licence threshold is small beside it. It is also the one an ordinary owner will notice, because it is the one they meet the first time they want to change a bathroom.

The approval timeline

The higher Marbella building licence figure is not in force yet, and that matters to anybody with a project costed at somewhere between €10,000 and €15,000 right now. The ordinance goes up on the municipal site for a twenty day comment period, then a formal draft is prepared and submitted for initial approval, then a further public information period opens before it can be finalised.

The council is targeting final approval before the end of 2026, with the new Marbella building licence threshold expected to apply from early 2027. Until it does, the €10,000 line is the one that binds. We track the ordinance as it moves through each stage, so tell us what you are planning and we will tell you whether it is worth starting now or worth waiting the few months.

What still needs a full licence

The Marbella building licence exemption turns on what the work touches, not on what it costs. Anything that alters the structure, the footprint or the external appearance of a building continues to require the full process regardless of the figure. Extending a terrace, adding a room, opening up a facade. A €9,000 extension needs a licence; a €14,000 bathroom, once the Marbella building licence change lands, will not.

The town hall draws that line where it does deliberately. Works with no planning consequence get a lighter touch, and works that change what the building is stay under review. If the ordinance simply lifted a number without holding that distinction, it would be a genuine loosening of oversight rather than a sensible piece of triage, and it is not.

The saving is the architect, not the fee

Owners tend to think of a Marbella building licence as a fee, and the fee is the smaller half of it. A formal application needs technical documentation, and that documentation usually needs a qualified architect or aparejador to prepare and certify it. On a €12,000 bathroom and window job, the professional fees and the licence together can take a real bite out of the budget before a single tile is lifted.

Then there is the calendar. A licensed project carries a review period on top of the build, and weeks or months of waiting is expensive in a market where a great many of these properties earn rental income across a season. Moving a job from the licensed side of the Marbella building licence line to the exempt side compresses the gap between deciding to renovate and having the builders in, which for a rental owner is worth considerably more than the fee.

We hold cost data on renovation work across Marbella built up over years of running these projects for clients, so we can tell you before you commit whether a job is realistically going to come in under the ceiling or whether it is a licensed project pretending not to be. Getting that judgement wrong at the quoting stage is what turns a six week refit into a five month one.

The paper trail still matters at resale

An exemption from the Marbella building licence is not an exemption from the record. Works under the threshold still get notified to the council through the appropriate declaration, and that declaration belongs in the same file as the invoices, the contractor details and any technical certification. Owners who treat the higher Marbella building licence ceiling as permission to skip the paperwork are making a false economy.

Buyers’ lawyers ask for evidence that renovation work was properly authorised, and they ask years after the work was done. A gap in that record can hold up a sale and occasionally forces a retroactive legalisation at real cost. The saving on a declaration is measured in hundreds; the cost of unwinding an undocumented alteration during due diligence is measured in months of a stalled transaction.

Put plainly, the documentation is worth more to you as a seller than the licence ever was as a buyer. When we take a property to market we go through this file before anything is listed, precisely because a clean renovation history is one of the few things that removes friction from a sale rather than adding it. If you are weighing what a refurbishment does to what the property is worth, our valuation calculator is the starting point and our sellers’ guide covers what a buyer’s lawyer will actually ask for.

How Marbella compares along the coast

Every municipality on this coast sets its own Marbella building licence threshold and its own list of qualifying works, and there is no Andalusian standard that applies from Estepona through Benahavís to Marbella. Two identical bathrooms in two neighbouring towns can sit on opposite sides of the licensing line, which surprises owners who hold property in more than one of them.

At €15,000 Marbella moves toward the more permissive end of what the province has historically allowed, and several Andalusian coastal towns have been raising these ceilings in step with building costs rather than leaving them fixed while the cost of a bathroom doubles around them. A buyer comparing towns on price per square metre alone is missing a real difference in how easy the property will be to live with.

If the market ran purely on price per metre, none of the rest of this would be a profession. How straightforward a property is to update, let and eventually sell is part of what it is worth, and the regulatory environment in the specific municipality belongs in the due diligence alongside the number on the listing. That is the sort of thing our buyers’ guide goes through, and it is why we would rather you asked us before you offer than after.

Who gains most from the higher ceiling

The owners who benefit most are the ones running a property as a rental and refreshing it every few years, because they meet the licence question again and again rather than once. A shorter route through the same works, repeated across a decade of ownership, adds up to a materially cheaper property to hold.

Second are buyers taking on something dated with the intention of bringing it up to standard. A resale apartment on the Golden Mile bought with a tired bathroom and original windows is a different proposition when the work sits under the Marbella building licence exemption, because the first summer is spent letting it rather than waiting on a case officer. We see that calculation made most weeks, and the numbers behind it move with this ordinance.

The ordinance moves in stages between now and the new year, and we are following each of them, so anyone weighing work in that window can ask us where it stands rather than track it themselves. We will be following it, and where a client has work costed near the line we will tell them which side of it they are on. Current stock is on our listings, and what the wider Marbella market is doing sits in our market report.

What the Marbella building licence change looks like on a real job

Take a two bedroom apartment bought as a resale, the sort we transact most weeks. New bathroom at around €8,000 fitted, six windows swapped for proper double glazing at around €5,500, and a split system for the two bedrooms at €1,800. That is €15,300 and it clears the current ceiling by a distance, so today it is a licensed project with an architect attached.

Under the new threshold the same owner would drop the air conditioning into a second phase after completion and bring the first tranche in at €13,500, which sits inside the exemption. Same works, same building, two very different routes through the town hall. Sequencing a job around the Marbella building licence threshold is legitimate and common, and it is one of the first things we look at when a client asks what a place will cost to bring up to standard.

The trap is a quote that lands at €14,800 and then moves. Materials get upgraded, a wall turns out to need attention, and the job quietly crosses the line into territory that needed a licence it never had. We would rather build in the margin at the quoting stage than have a client discover the problem when a buyer’s lawyer finds it four years later.

The months before the new Marbella building licence rules take effect

Anyone with work costed comfortably under the current Marbella building licence ceiling can proceed as before, because nothing about their position changes. Anyone above €15,000 is in licensed territory either way and should get the technical documentation moving rather than waiting for an ordinance that will not help them.

The owners with a genuine decision are the ones between the two figures, and the answer there depends on whether the property is earning. A rental that would lose a summer season to a licensing wait is usually better served by starting now and accepting the process. A property sitting empty over the winter can afford to wait for the new ceiling and save both the fee and the architect.

We are following the ordinance through each of its stages and will know when it lands rather than reading about it afterwards. If you own here and have work in mind, tell us the scope and we will tell you which side of the line it falls and what the sensible sequencing looks like. That is a five minute conversation that regularly saves a client several thousand euros and a season of rental income.

The Costa del Sol property market continues to evolve, but informed decisions begin with reliable data. Download the JUST Q1 2026 Marbella Property Market Report today and gain exclusive insight into one of Europe’s most resilient and internationally driven residential markets.

Research enquiries:
James Evans — Managing Partner
📞 +34 643 390 376 | ✉️ james@justrealestate.es

Sales enquiries:
Alina Nouaimeh — Partner
📞 +34 600 689 749 | ✉️ alina@justrealestate.es

FAQ

Is the JUST Market Report free to download?

Yes. The report is available as a complimentary download and provides professional analysis of the Marbella, Estepona and Benahávis property markets.

Who is the report designed for?

The report is written for buyers, sellers, investors, developers, relocation clients, family offices and anyone seeking accurate, data-led insight into the Costa del Sol property market.

Where does the data come from?

Our analysis uses official information from Registradores de España, INE, Notariado, Tinsa, Banco de España and other recognised industry sources, combined with our own market observations and research.

How often is the report updated?

JUST Real Estate publishes a comprehensive market report every quarter, ensuring readers have access to the latest available market intelligence.

Our latest listings

View our latest listings of luxury properties for sale, where sophistication and comfort come together for an exceptional living experience.

Mijas Pueblo · JUST-00992P

4 bedroom villa for sale in Mijas Pueblo, Mijas

• 4 beds
• 4 baths
• Plot: 580 m²
• Interior: 150 m²

€2,250,000

Mijas · JUST-239312

4 bedroom villa for sale in Mijas

• 4 beds
• 4 baths
• Plot: 580 m²
• Interior: 150 m²

€2,050,000

Mijas · CP82828

2 bedroom apartment for sale in Mijas

• 2 beds
• 2 baths

€649,000

Mijas · 5859MLV

6 bedroom villa for sale in Mijas

• 6 beds
• 4 baths
• Plot: 658 m²
• Interior: 360 m²

€1,395,000

Valtocado - Mijas · 428-05408P

5 bedroom house for sale in Valtocado, Mijas

• 5 beds
• 4 baths
• Plot: 41,000 m²
• Interior: 378 m²

€2,600,000

Mijas Pueblo · MOJO26006

4 bedroom villa for sale in Mijas Pueblo, Mijas

• 4 beds
• 4 baths
• Plot: 1,974 m²

€2,250,000

Mijas La Nueva · RHS44

Plot for sale in Mijas La Nueva, Mijas

• Plot: 804 m²

€465,000

Loma del Flamenco - Mijas · 361-12699P

Plot for sale in Loma del Flamenco, Mijas

• Plot: 847 m²

€250,000

Mijas · 855-00152P

Plot for sale in Mijas

• Plot: 997 m²

€395,000

Mijas · 855-00151P

Plot for sale in Mijas

• Plot: 1,930 m²

€500,000

Mijas · 855-00150P

Plot for sale in Mijas

• Plot: 1,613 m²

€595,000

Mijas · 855-00149P

Plot for sale in Mijas

• Plot: 675 m²

€395,000