The problem of access to housing in the Canary Islands and in particular in Lanzarote is multifaceted. There are many reasons that make it difficult to have or rent a house on the island, from the increase in rental prices, the difficulty in finding a house, the rise of vacation homes in residential areas and the gentrification of neighborhoods that make it much more expensive to live.
Among other factors that contribute to the increase in rental prices are empty houses that are neither rented nor sold. Tías is the Spanish municipality with more than 10,000 inhabitants that has more empty homes. Almost five out of ten properties located in the town of Conejera are unoccupied, and it is also the only Canary Island region that exceeded the threshold of 40% of empty houses in the most up-to-date data, from 2021.
According to figures issued by the National Institute of Statistics (INE), Tías has 17,243 homes registered, of which 8,273 are empty; around 48% of the offer. This municipality is the second most expensive on the island in terms of sale prices, supposedly, only behind Yaiza. By percentage, the southern municipality has 30% of the usable real estate in disuse. In this region, a total of 10,360 locations are registered, of which 3,131 are not used.
In total, according to provisional data from the INE, Lanzarote had 19,986 empty homes in 2021. By municipalities, after Tías and Yaiza, the third Lanzarote town with the most expensive square meter of land in Lanzarote is located in Teguise. In the municipality of Teguise, 21% of homes are not used. Specifically, of 11,186 homes, a total of 2,374 are unoccupied.
In the case of San Bartolomé, there are 1,538 empty properties out of the 8,484 registered, so 18.13% are not used by their owners or rented to a third party.
The municipality of Tinajo is where the fewest homes are registered, around 2,600 properties, but of which, 422 are not used, which represents 16.23% of habitable properties without inhabitants.
The capital of the island is the municipality with the most homes: 25,339, with 3,114 not used. Only 12.3% of the houses in Arrecife are not inhabited. Thus, Haría has 29% of the houses unoccupied, with 3,380 registered, of which 1,134 are not used.
