! Murcia Today – Are house prices really falling around the Mar Menor due to pollution?
A new report has revealed that the poor condition of the Mar Menor has not affected property prices in the area, but they are still below pre-pandemic levels
Contrary to rumour, pollution problems in the Mar Menor do not appear to have affected property prices in the area surrounding the salt lagoon, at least according to the results of a report published by the Assessment and real estate data Tinsa.
This report shows that in the first quarter of 2022, the value of houses – new and second-hand – in the coastal towns of the Region of Murcia fluctuated around 1,010 euros per square meter.
This figure represents a 1.8% increase over the previous year, but still falls short of pre-pandemic levels – it is actually 0.9% lower than in 2019. In fact, Murcia is one of four provinces in Spain – along with Cantabria, La Coruña and Guipúzcoa – which have not seen an increase in property prices compared to 2019.
The report prepared by Tinsa goes even further and delves into the real estate prices recorded in the various municipalities surrounding the Mar Menor. Cartagena, with an average price of 1,122 euros per square meter, recorded in the first quarter of 2022 a 2.7% increase in its real estate market compared to the previous year. In the case of San Javier, houses in the area cost an average of 1,302 euros per square meter, or 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 meter. In La Unión, the cost is significantly lower, at 855 euros per square meter, but this figure has increased 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 meter, 0.6% lower than in 2021.
The results of this report clash radically with the conclusions drawn from other recently published analyses, which have detected a depreciation of the property market in the Mar Menor region. For example, the Bank of Spain has found that the impact on the housing market in the region due to the existing environmental problem has resulted in a loss of up to 4,150 million euros over the past six years.
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