In the Canary Islands, increases in the price of second-hand housing and wage improvements have not gone hand in hand in recent years.
In 2024, the price per square meter increased by 13% and the offered salaries fell by 0.9%, according to the study “Relationship between salaries and home purchase in 2024” based on the average prices of second-hand homes for sale in the Fotocasa Real Estate Index and the average salary data from job offers on the InfoJobs platform.
Observing the evolution of salaries and housing prices since 2021, we see that in these three years salaries have fallen by 6.8% while the price of housing for sale has risen by 53.6%.
“Access to housing has deteriorated significantly in recent years due to the strong disconnection between the evolution of the price of housing and that of salaries,“ explains María Matos, Director of Studies and Spokesperson for Fotocasa.
“In the last three years, the average evolution of salaries offered in InfoJobs at the national level has shown an upward trend, while in the Canary Islands the average salary on the platform has decreased since the pandemic. In 2024, we observe a change in trend with controlled inflation and some recovery of purchasing power in general, although the situation in the real estate market continues to make access to housing difficult for a large part of the population,“ says Mónica Pérez, Director of Communication and Studies at InfoJobs.
Regarding the autonomous communities, if we analyze the last year compared to the previous one, in 2024 the average salary fell in five of them and the price of housing for purchase rose in fifteen. The increase in the price of housing has equaled or exceeded 10% in seven communities, while increases in offered salaries have exceeded 5% in only two regions of the country.
The community most affected by the decrease in salaries in 2024 was Extremadura, with a fall of 10.6%. Thus, Extremaduran workers have gone from earning an average salary of 26,844 euros/year in 2023 to 24,001 euros/year in 2024 (that is, 10.6% less).
To this is added that in Extremadura the price of housing increased by 3.9% compared to the previous year: it has gone from paying 1,192 euros per square meter in 2023 to 1,239 euros in 2024 (that is, 3.9% more).
On the other hand, the region in which the price of housing for sale has increased the most in the last year is the Valencian Community with 19.8%. Thus, if we focus on the data from the last year, we see that Valencians have gone from paying 1,758 euros/m2 in 2023 to paying 2,106 euros in 2024 per square meter of a home for sale (that is, 19.8% more). To this is added that the average salaries of the Valencian Community have barely increased in the last year by 2.5% (they have gone from 25,540 euros/year in 2023 to 26,190 euros/year in 2024).
