Buying an apartment or even a townhouse in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria city has some serious advantages. Here are the big six…
You can use your property all year round without packing a jacket
Las Palmas has a mild climate throughout the year with temperatures rarely dropping below 20ºC. This means you can use the city’s incredible beach and a vast range of outdoor cafes and restaurants all-year-round.
Unlike the Mediterranean and the rest of Spain, there is no real closed season in the Canary Islands and Las Palmas city is a fun place to be even during the depths of ‘winter’. For example in February, often the wettest month in Las Palmas with an average of eight days of rain per year, the city is buzzing thanks to the annual carnival.
All property can be rented to tourists
All property in Las Palmas city is classified as residential and you can, therefore, apply for a tourist rental license (Licencia de Vivienda Vacacional) and rent it on a short-term basis to holidaymakers.
With tourism is Las Palmas booming all-year-round, and the rules for holiday rentals in Gran Canaria’s resorts so complex, the city is an ideal place to invest in a rental property that you can also use for holidays whenever you choose.
More on holiday rental investment property in Las Palmas.
Residential rental yields are amongst the highest in Spain
Residential rents in Las Palmas have risen by 22% in the last year. This is due to high demand (everyone wants to live by the beach), a lack of new building in the last 10 years, and the booming tourist rental market (owners are renting short-term rather than on an annual basis). Spain’s cultural attachment to owning property rather than renting also plays a big part; most Canarians buy a property to live in as soon as they can rather than rent.
Residental rental properties are in short supply and high demand, making them an excellent investment that is much lower-effort than a tourist rental investment. The disadvantage of letting on a long term basis is that you can’t use our Las Palmas property whenever you want to.
The right one-bedroom apartment in the beach areas of Las Palmas (not on the front) currently rents out for 600 euros per month. Not bad given that you can buy them for just over 100,000 euros.
Prices are close to historical lows and the future is bright
Prices in Las Palmas city fell by almost 40% in the decade after the global crisis that started in 2006. They have only really started to rise in high-demand areas of the city within the last 12 months.
With tourism booming in Gran Canaria and Las Palmas, the Canarian economy recovering well, and sustained demand from both local and foreign buyers, the long-term prospects for Las Palmas property are positive.
Prices rises are being driven by pent-up demand from locals looking to upsize, sustained foreign buyer interest, and old-fashioned lack of supply. With the locals banks still being careful with lending, there isn’t even a whiff of the speculation-driven bubble that pushed up prices in the early 2000s.
That said, if you buy in a high-demand area of Las Palmas, the market is busy and you will always know that you can resell when you want to. The property market close to the beach has the major benefit of liquidity.
Owning a property in Las Palmas is cheap
Buying a Las Palmas property costs you around 10% on top of the price you pay (in purchase taxes, notary and registry fees, etc). This is pretty much standard across Spain.
However, once you own a property in Las Palmas, your annual tax costs are remarkably low.
There are no municipal taxes for things like rubbish collection, and no monthly council tax.
Owners only pay an annual (IBI) tax on the land your property occupies. This is levied by the local Ayuntamiento and is rarely more than a few hundred euros per year.
If you are a non-resident owner and choose not to rent out your property, there is also a small annual tax.
All you have to pay is for electricity, water, internet and cable TV if you want it, and the monthly community fees if you buy an apartment in a building with communal areas.
Las Palmas city tops the rankings
Las Palmas ranks in the top 5% of cities worldwide when it comes to quality of life, according to website Numbeo.com.
Numbeo factors in a wide range of things that affect lifestyle, such as commute times, air quality, weather, cost of living, etc and comes up with an aggregate score for each city. Las Palmas’ score is amongst the highest out there.
The city also has the cleanest air of any city in Spain, the most pleasant urban weather in the world, a world-class city beach, and low crime rates.
In short, Las Palmas is a great city to live in.
Las Palmas city just gets better and better
I’ve lived in Las Palmas city for almost 15 years and I can tell you from experience that it is getting better and better.
The restaurants and bar scene is buzzing (new rules mean that rooftop bars are now allowed and they are popping up fast), the city is investing in parks and green spaces, and the bike lane network gets better all the time.
Add to that a thriving cultural scene with an auditorium, several theatres, live music almost every weekend and lots of local fiestas and Las Palmas is a place that it is hard to get bored of.
Oh, and did I mention Las Palmas’ five beaches? What about the surfing, and the snorkelling, and the running tracks?
Las Palmas Property
I’m Laura Leyshon and I’m Las Palmas’ resident British estate agent. I speak fluent English, Spanish and French and my job is to help buyers looking for their ideal Las Palmas property.
I help my buyers throughout the entire process of finding and buying a property in Las Palmas.
Please feel free to contact me for a chat at any time.
Contact Laura
Homepage contact form