The Costa Blanca property market in 2026, in official figures
The Costa Blanca property market in 2026: prices, sales and foreign buyers from the INE, the land registrars and the notaries, and what asking prices leave out.
What you will learn
- What the official statistics say about prices and sales
- Why registrars and notaries disagree on foreign buyers
- What asking prices on portals do and do not tell you
In three lines, the Costa Blanca property market in 2026 looks like this: prices are still rising, sales are slightly down and the share of foreign buyers is at a record. That is what the official statistics show, from the national statistics office (INE), the land registrars and the notaries. None of them publishes a figure for a single town on the coast, so this is the picture for Spain, the Comunitat Valenciana and the province of Alicante, with what each number can and cannot tell you.
Prices: still rising in the official figures
The INE house price index, which tracks the prices of homes actually sold, rose 12.2% in Spain in the year to the second quarter of 2026, and 13.0% in the Comunitat Valenciana. Resale homes rose faster than new ones, 12.9% against 7.4%, according to the INE housing price index for the second quarter of 2026, published on 7 September.
The land registrars measure something different: the average declared price per square metre of the homes they register. In the second quarter of 2026 it was €2,267 in the province of Alicante, up 2.4% on the quarter, against €2,022 for the Comunitat Valenciana and €2,487 for Spain. Over the last twelve months the Alicante average was €2,194, 11.7% more than a year before, in the Registradores property statistics for the second quarter of 2026.
Sales: slightly fewer than a year ago
The number of sales has stopped growing. Registrars recorded 12,298 home sales in Alicante province in the second quarter, 2.5% fewer than in the first, and 51,392 over twelve months, 5.3% fewer than a year earlier; only Madrid and Barcelona recorded more in the quarter. Across Spain the INE counted 61,417 registered home sales in July 2026, 5.1% fewer than in July 2025, in its statistics on transfers of property rights. A sale reaches the registry weeks or months after it is signed, so these figures describe the spring more than today.
Foreign buyers in the Costa Blanca property market 2026
Registrars put purchases by foreigners at 15.98% of all home purchases in Spain in the second quarter of 2026, the highest share on record, a little over 26,800 homes. In the Comunitat Valenciana the share was 31.03%, and Alicante had the highest of any province at 46.43%, close to one home in two. By nationality the British led with 6.99% of foreign purchases, just ahead of the Dutch with 6.94% and the Germans with 6.11%, followed by Moroccans, Romanians, Italians, French and Poles.
The notaries tell a different story for the first half of the year. They counted 62,327 purchases of homes by foreigners, 13.0% fewer than a year earlier, the largest fall in a first half since 2020, and 18.3% of all sales. They also found that non-resident foreigners paid an average of €3,493 per square metre, against €2,102 for foreigners living in Spain and €1,971 for Spanish buyers, in the notaries' report on foreign buyers in the first half of 2026.
The two sources do not contradict each other as much as it seems. Notaries count deeds when they are signed; registrars count them when they are entered in the land registry, often later, and the periods compared are not the same. A foreign buyer in the registry figures may also live in Spain. The notaries separate residents from non-residents, and that difference matters on this coast, where many buyers live abroad and pay the highest prices.
What asking prices do and do not tell you
Property portals publish averages of asking prices by town. They are useful to see what is on offer, but they show what sellers want, not what buyers paid, and at the top of the market the difference can be large. They also mix very different homes: a renovated villa with a sea view and an apartment that needs work end up in the same average. There is no official sale price series for Moraira, Jávea, Calpe or Benissa, so treat any precise figure for a single town with care, whoever publishes it.
Nor do we publish forecasts. Interest rates are moving again, which we cover in mortgage rates this autumn, and the INE and the registrars will publish figures for the third quarter in the coming months. The useful question is not where the average goes next, but whether a particular house is priced fairly against recent sales and its condition.
If you are buying to hold or to let, look past the headline: check what similar homes sold for, what the house will cost to own each year, and what the rental rules allow before you count on an income. Read what it really costs to buy a house in Spain, then see the investment properties on the Costa Blanca North.
Homes for this post
Across the coast
Written by Nicolas Strebel.