Mudanzas La Mallorquina: "Many middle-aged people are leaving, between 40 and 50-years-old. There are many police and Guardia Civil officers and professionals who are leaving because of the price of housing."
Mudanzas Reina: "There is a lot of demand. Many people are calling us because they are going to the Peninsula. The profile is people who have lived on the island as renters for many years."
Transportes Transatlántico: "There is a large exodus of working people who are leaving Mallorca. For September we have a pretty much full diary of people who are leaving."
Orlando Lobo, the owner of Transportes Transatlántico, explains that he has had to add two more trucks because of the demand. August and September are key months for removals, as families head to new homes to start new jobs or because of the new school year. "I've been in Mallorca for twenty-three years. Two years ago I myself was excluded from the island’s property market and evicted. In the end, I bought a house with a plot of land of 254 square metres for 55,000 euros in Requena. I moved for financial reasons. I would never live on the island again." With his family in the Valencia province, he travels back and forth every day by plane. "The house in Requena would cost me a million euros here."
Lobo adds that there are people who are moving to Mallorca. "They are Germans and Swedes." Adrián Lizancos, manager of Mudanzas Reina, says the same: "For a year and a half we have been seeing people from northern Europe with very high purchasing power - Germans, Swiss, British, Swedes."
In the spring, Sencelles became the focus of the discontent caused by increased house prices and gentrification. The Banc de Temps collective organised the protest in Palma towards the end of May. Portrayed as having been anti-tourism, it was more to do with the housing situation. Residents felt that they were being forced out by rising prices. Officially there are 167 holiday rental properties in Sencelles, but Banc de Temps reckon there are way more. Sencelles, they add, is symptomatic of what's been happening elsewhere in Mallorca's villages and small towns. "All the houses are dedicated to tourist rentals."
An exaggeration this may be, but the upward pressure on prices in Sencelles means that properties that could be rented for 350 euros ten years ago now fetch 1,200. Among residents who are leaving is one who is going to Ponferrada in Castile and León.
Another, Patricia Barredas, is moving to Piedrasblancas in Asturias. For her three children, the new school year will start in the north of Spain. The house the family has bought cost 90,000 euros. "Here it would cost half a million euros and that's before doing any work to it." She's lucky in that she works for the Palma-based Hotelbeds. The company will allow her to work from home without any problem. In fact, she adds that the company is hiring people who live on the mainland, "because they can't find them here".
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