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ARCHIVED - Are house prices really falling around the Mar Menor because of pollution?
A new report has found that the poor state of the Mar Menor has not affected property prices in the area, but they are still below pre-pandemic levels
Contrary to the rumour mill, the problems of pollution in the Mar Menor do not seem to have affected property prices in the area surrounding the salt lagoon, at least according to the results of a report published by the real estate valuation and data group Tinsa.
This report shows that in the first quarter of 2022, the value of houses – both new and used – in the coastal towns and cities of the Region of Murcia oscillated around 1,010 euros per square metre.
That figure is an increase of 1.8% over the previous year, but still does not reach pre-pandemic levels – it is actually 0.9% lower than in 2019. In fact, Murcia is one of just four provinces of Spain – together with Cantabria, La Coruña and Guipúzcoa – that did not see an increase in real estate prices compared to 2019.
The report prepared by Tinsa goes one step further and dives into the property prices registered in the different municipalities surrounding the Mar Menor. Cartagena, with an average price of 1,122 euros per square metre, recorded in the first quarter of 2022 an increase of 2.7% in its property market compared to the previous year. In the case of San Javier, homes in the area cost and average of 1,302 euros per square metre, 2.4% more.
House prices in San Pedro del Pinatar remained stable throughout the first quarter of the year at 1,004 euros per square metre. In La Unión, the cost is considerably lower, at 855 euros per square metre, but this figure rose slightly by 0.6%.
Los Alcázares is the only municipality of those surrounding the Mar Menor that saw its property prices fall between January and March of this year. The average house price in Los Alcázares is 1,106 euros per square metre, 0.6% less than in 2021.
The results of this report clash radically with conclusions drawn from other recently published analyses, which did detect a depreciation of the real estate market in the Mar Menor area. For example, the Bank of Spain found that the impact on the housing market in the area due to the existing environmental problem had led to a loss of up to 4,150 million euros in the last six years.
Image: Archive
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