Market analysis — Palma de Mallorca
Palma has 415,940 residents in 2022, growing 3.8% from 2015 according to INE's Padrón Continuo. Median sale price per square metre in Rendio's analysed listings sits at €6,604/m², the second-highest among the 16 cities Rendio covers, behind Barcelona. Sale-price pressure comes simultaneously from foreign buyers, from holiday rentals authorised under the Balearic ETV regime, and from a native population with positive demographic momentum —an unusual combination among Spanish capitals.
Palma's rental tension marks the extreme of the sample: 93 out of 100 on demand and 7 out of 100 on tenant budget. SERPAVI's average rent estimate (~€800/month in 2024) absorbs around 59% of the per-capita disposable income INE publishes for the province (€16,181/year), one of the highest ratios in the sample. This combination —the highest demand and lowest affordability among the 16 cities— reflects a structural tension between permanent residential use and alternative uses of the housing stock (second homes, authorised tourist rentals, foreign-buyer wealth-storage acquisition). Historically, European island markets with similar tensions have evolved with regulatory pressure on short-stay rentals and with administrative limits on change of use.
Rendio's Palma coverage is currently limited (37 active listings), with two districts having sufficient sample for distrital analysis: La Missio - Mercat (3 listings, 1.50% net yield) and the generic Palma de Mallorca zone (19 listings, 1.00%). Prices covered range from €5,120/m² in La Missio - Mercat to €7,648/m² in the generic Palma de Mallorca zone. This limited coverage is consistent with a market where retail investors compete against buyer profiles with deeper pockets —foreign buyers, second-home buyers, tourist-rental operators— and where the supply accessible to pure residential investors is narrower than total supply. The gap between gross yields of 1-1.5% and the observed tension levels highlights the compression of pure residential return versus the combined return of residential and holiday use.
Rendio applies an initial filter to remove listings outside the retail-investor profile: Balearic VPO-classified properties, units with active tenants or irregular occupation, «to reform» listings without a defensible refurbishment budget, and cases with insufficient surface or price data. The Catastro reference adds an extra verification when available. The dashboard lets you filter the 37 active Palma listings by these criteria and by net yield computed one listing at a time.