Spain's housing shortfall will top one million homes by 2028: what it means for buying in Málaga and the Costa del Sol

Spain has been running a housing shortfall of around 755,000 homes since 2021, and the Bank of Spain calculates that it will exceed one million by 2028, because far more households are formed each year than homes are built. The province of Malaga is one of the six that account for more than half of that gap, so for anyone buying or investing on the Costa del Sol the message is clear: supply will remain scarce, and that underpins prices.

The figure was given by the Bank of Spain's deputy governor, Soledad Núñez, in her speech at the Forbes Economic Summit in Madrid on 23 September 2026. It updates the estimate in the institution's 2025 Annual Report, published in June, which put the gap between 2021 and 2025 at around 750,000 homes. These are the key points and what they mean for the Costa del Sol market.

How many homes is Spain short of?

The Bank of Spain measures the shortfall as the difference between the homes completed and the new households formed. In 2025 around 240,000 households were created, in line with the average of 245,000 a year between 2021 and 2024, while only about 92,000 homes were completed, 9% fewer than the year before. That mismatch adds up to around 755,000 homes since 2021 and, according to Núñez, could grow by another 300,000 between 2026 and 2028.

Proportionally, the gap between 2021 and 2025 is equivalent to 3.7% of Spanish households, compared with an average of 0.5% in the euro area. Of the economies the Bank of Spain compares, only Portugal is worse off, and Germany is the only one that has built more than it needed:

Why aren't more homes being built?

The problem is not a lack of demand or credit, but of supply. The Bank of Spain points to several obstacles that reinforce one another:

• Little land ready to build on and slow urban planning: in Málaga only 35% of the homes foreseen in the town plan have actually been built, according to the Ministry of Housing's Urban Information System.
• A fragmented development and construction sector, with falling productivity and tight margins that limit its capacity to invest.
• A shortage of skilled labour and rising construction costs.
• Unsold stock that does not fit: around 450,000 homes from the 2000s boom remain unsold, but many are in places or in a condition that do not match what buyers want.

We have already reported on this blog that construction output has been falling for months. The Bank of Spain's figures confirm that the bottleneck is structural and will not be resolved in the short term.

Why is the province of Málaga among the most stretched?

More than half of the shortfall, 52.5%, is concentrated in six provinces: Madrid, Barcelona, Alicante, Valencia, Murcia and Málaga. In Madrid and Barcelona the main driver is residential demand linked to jobs; on the Mediterranean coast another force is added, which the Bank of Spain analyses in detail: purchases by non-residents and the tourist use of homes, which take properties out of the residential market.

In 2025, non-residents accounted for 27.9% of home purchases in the province, almost four times the national average of 7.4%, and 13.6 points more than in 2007. Tourist rentals and homes owned by non-resident foreigners together make up 14.1% of the province's housing stock, compared with 3.3% across Spain. The result is a market where international demand coexists with that of local residents, who are finding it increasingly hard:

Of Spain's six largest cities, Málaga is the one where buying requires the greatest effort from those who do not yet own a home: ten years of net income, more than Madrid (9.7) and Barcelona (9.0). And, unlike in Madrid or Seville, moving to another town in the urban area barely reduces that effort.

What do prices in our portfolio show?

Our September market report, based on 8,810 properties for sale on the Costa del Sol, puts the median at €650,000 and €4,657/m². New builds, which are what should close the gap, barely reach 5% of supply: 468 of the 9,288 properties for sale in our portfolio.

What little new-build supply there is is concentrated in Mijas, Estepona and Marbella, while in the city of Málaga we have just 12 new homes for sale. With so little supply, many developments sell off-plan, so buyers who wait to see the finished building usually find less to choose from.

Is this a bubble like 2008?

Real house prices, adjusted for inflation, have accelerated since 2024 to levels comparable to 2005, but the Bank of Spain rules out the same kind of risk as before the financial crisis. Banks are lending on prudent terms, and household debt and interest burdens are at historic lows. In Núñez's words, housing is today a serious economic and social problem, but not a problem for the financial system.

Sales volumes confirm it: in 2025 more than 750,000 transactions took place, a figure similar to early 2008, but they are equivalent to 3.8% of households, compared with an average of 5.5% during the 2004-2007 boom. The underlying difference is that back then there were too many homes and credit was easy; now there are too few homes.

The mismatch goes back a long way. Since 1980, the real disposable income of Spanish households has multiplied by 1.8, while real house prices have multiplied by 3.5. In the euro area, the figures are 1.8 for prices and 1.6 for income. In other words, housing in Spain has become more expensive much faster than household incomes, and the lack of supply makes it worse.

What does it mean for buying or investing on the Costa del Sol?

No report can predict the price of a specific home, but the Bank of Spain's figures paint a useful picture for making decisions:

• A widespread fall in prices is unlikely while the shortfall keeps growing. The reasonable expectation is for price rises to slow, as is already happening in Andalusia: according to the INE, prices rose 11.9% year on year in the second quarter, compared with 13.3% in the first.
• Residential rents will stay under pressure. The Málaga urban area, together with Valencia's, is where rents have risen most in real terms in recent years, and almost three in ten homes on its rental market are tourist lets.
• Regulation is the factor most likely to change. The Bank of Spain calls for measures that increase supply and warns that those that curb demand can bring short-term relief but may have unintended effects on supply. Before buying to let, always check the local rules on tourist rentals.
• With new builds, the key is to get in early and with safeguards. By law, any payments you make to the developer during construction must be covered by a bank guarantee or insurance, so ask for it before paying.
• For international buyers, the differences between municipalities matter as much as the overall trend: in our portfolio, the median price per square metre ranges from €4,213 in Mijas to €5,972 in Marbella.

In short: is it worth waiting for prices to fall?

With a shortfall that the Bank of Spain itself expects to exceed one million homes by 2028, waiting for a widespread price fall on the Costa del Sol is a bet with little support in the data. What does change is the pace: price rises are tending to slow, and getting it right depends on choosing the right area, the right type of home and the right moment to buy into a development.

If you are thinking of buying or investing on the Costa del Sol, at EVS PROPERTY GROUP we help you read these figures with your budget and preferred area in mind.

Sources: Bank of Spain (2025 Annual Report and Soledad Núñez's speech of 23 September 2026), INE and the EVS PROPERTY GROUP market report for September 2026.

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