The numbers
The holding cost nobody budgets
A house costs something every year whether you are in it or not. The lines that make up the bill, where they are large, and the two that are invisible until the first year's end.
Balearic Islands · Spain
Ibiza
The most expensive island in Spain per square metre of good land, the shortest season and the highest letting yields in the Mediterranean. Ibiza is a market for people who understand that the licence is the asset and the house is the finish.
The Ranesta Index
€10,000 to 20,000
Prime band, per m²
€30,000
Trophy, per m²
4.0 to 6.0%
Gross yield
55%
Sold off-market
12.5%
Cost to acquire
1.0%
Cost to hold, a year
Editorial estimate of prime asking bands, September 2026. Not a valuation. Typical entry €4.0 m, trophy from €30 m. Prime marketing time about 200 days.
Where exactly
Es Cubells, Vista Alegre and Porroig
The south-west cliffs, where the sunsets are and where the two gated communities sit. Frontline here is the island's trophy: thirty thousand a square metre has been paid for the view of Es Vedrà.
Santa Gertrudis, San Lorenzo and the north
The fincas: old farmhouses on land, rebuilt as the island's best houses. Privacy, a licence and a good well are the three things that price them.
Dalt Vila, Talamanca and Marina Botafoch
The urban market: palaces inside the walls, apartments on the marina, walking distance to the town. The only part of the island that does not depend on the season.
Cala Jondal, Cala Conta and the south
The beach-club coast. Villas here let for the highest weekly rates on the island and are bought by the numbers, not for retirement.
The short version
The licence is the asset
Nowhere else in Europe does one piece of paper move a price so much. A villa with a valid tourist licence lets for twenty weeks at rates that cover its running cost twice over; the same villa without one is a house you can only use yourself, and the island has effectively stopped issuing new ones. Two identical houses on the same road can be a fifth apart in value for that reason.
The second thing the market prices is privacy. The best houses in the north sit at the end of a track on land you cannot see from the road, and buyers pay for the track. The third is the view of Es Vedrà, which is finite and known.
The season is the risk. From November to April the south of the island is closed, the restaurants are shut and the villa costs what it costs whether anybody is in it. Buyers who do the arithmetic with the holding-cost instrument before they buy tend to keep their houses; buyers who do it afterwards tend to sell them.
Worth knowing
Transfer tax on a resale
Balearic progressive scale, up to 13 per cent above two million
Tourist licence
The single most valuable attribute of a villa; an ETV licence adds fifteen to twenty per cent to a house and is no longer granted on most land
Season
May to October in practice; a villa lets twenty to twenty-four weeks a year
Water
Wells and cisterns matter; a house without a reliable supply is unlettable in August
Wealth tax
Balearic regime, three million exemption per person
Building
Rural land rules restrict new houses to plots of several hectares; the value is in rebuilding what exists
Who is buying
The letting investor, the music and fashion money that has always been here, Dutch and German families in the north, and a newer line of American and Gulf buyers in the gated communities. Almost nobody retires to Ibiza.
What the desk is working on
Licensed villas in the south with a proven letting record, fincas in the north with land and water, and anything inside the walls of Dalt Vila. Two mandates specifically exclude houses that have ever been on a portal.
Buying notes
As Mallorca: NIE, binding deposit, notary completion, twelve to thirteen per cent in costs on a resale. The licence transfers with the house but must be verified with the Consell before the deposit, not after. Water rights and the state of the well go into the lawyer's report, or the desk will not proceed.
In the private portfolio
RN-0433 · Ibiza
Licensed villa above Cala Jondal
A letting villa with a proven record, a tourist licence in the seller's name and a sunset over Es Vedrà.
6 bedrooms600 m²5,000 m² plot
€9.0 m to 11 mReference RN-0433
RN-0396 · Ibiza
Finca in the north with water
A restored farmhouse at the end of a track on six hectares, with the well that makes it possible.
5 bedrooms450 m²60,000 m² plot
€7.0 m to 9.0 mReference RN-0396
Open buyer mandates
- M-112A family office seeks a waterfront estate in the Mallorca southwest or on Ibiza, 15 to 30 million, a mooring preferred, and would buy before a renovation rather than after.
The hotspot vote
Ibiza is worth it for
Questions buyers ask
For most buyers it is a summer asset that happens to be a house. The yields are the best in the Mediterranean and the winters are long. If you want to live there, buy in or near the town.
Fifteen to twenty per cent to the value and the difference between a house that pays for itself and one that does not. Verify it exists, is in the seller's name and is not under sanction. Licences have been withdrawn.
Because they cannot be built again. A rebuilt farmhouse on five hectares in the north is one of a fixed number, and the number falls whenever one is bought by somebody who never sells.
Very. More than half of prime sales are private, partly because sellers here are often people whose names would make a listing news. Blind listings are common above ten million.
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