Malaga has officially become the ‘ultra-luxury’ capital of the Spanish property market.
The province, home to billionaire playgrounds like Marbella and Benahavis, now accounts for more than a third of all homes on sale for at least €3million.
New figures from idealista show there were 10,511 such properties being advertised across Spain at the end of June.
An extraordinary 3,671 of them are in Malaga, representing 35% of the entire Spanish market.
That puts Malaga comfortably ahead of the Balearic Islands, which have 2,942 ultra-luxury listings, or 28% of the national total.
Perhaps even more strikingly, Malaga has more €3 million-plus properties for sale than Madrid and Barcelona combined.
The Spanish capital has 1,830 such listings, while Barcelona province has 608, giving the two a combined total of 2,438 – more than 1,200 fewer than Malaga alone.
It comes as the Costa del Sol continues to attract wealthy international buyers and an increasing number of high-end developments.
Malaga and Madrid dominate €1m-plus market
The figures also reveal the enormous concentration of Spain’s wider luxury housing market in a handful of provinces.
There are currently 46,454 homes advertised for more than €1million across the country.
Malaga and Madrid each account for approximately 20% of the national total, making them joint leaders.
They are followed by the Balearic Islands, with 17%, Barcelona and Alicante, both with 12%, and Girona with 5%.
Together, those six provinces account for an extraordinary 86% of all €1million-plus homes currently being advertised in Spain.
The concentration illustrates the increasingly divergent nature of Spain’s property market, with luxury homes heavily clustered around Madrid, Barcelona, the Mediterranean coast and the islands.
Elsewhere in Andalucia, Cadiz accounts for around 2% of Spain’s million-euro listings.
At the opposite end of the scale, Jaen has just three properties on the market above the €1million threshold.
Zamora and Teruel have only one each, Cuenca has two and Lugo five, while Soria and Palencia are the only Spanish provinces without a single property currently advertised for more than €1 million.
One in three ultra-luxury homes is in Malaga
Malaga’s dominance becomes even greater once the threshold rises to €3million.
After Malaga’s 3,671 listings and the Balearics’ 2,942 come Madrid with 1,830, Barcelona with 608 and Alicante with 506.
Girona has 263 properties above the threshold and Santa Cruz de Tenerife has 247.
Meanwhile, 13 Spanish provinces do not currently have a single property advertised for €3million or more.
The figures mean that Malaga alone accounts for roughly one in every three ultra-luxury homes for sale in Spain, underlining the extraordinary weight of the Costa del Sol in the country’s top-end property sector.
Read more Andalucia news at the Spanish Eye.
