Latest figures from the National Statistics Institute - these relate to November last year - show that ten per cent or more of homes in seven municipalities in Mallorca are legal holiday rentals.
Of these seven, four have resident populations of less than 1,000. A fifth municipality, Búger, has around 1,200 residents, and it has the highest percentage of homes that are holiday lets - 20.83%.
Pollensa, considerably larger (some 17,500 residents), ranks second with 19.07%. Pollensa has long had a high number of holiday rentals. It is unusual among the coastal tourist municipalities in having more holiday rental accommodation places than hotel places.
Alcudia, the largest of the seven with a population of over 20,000, ranks fourth with 12.96%. In third is Ariany with 13.26%. Fifth, sixth and seventh are Fornalutx, Deia and the smallest municipality of all in population terms, Escorca - 11.32%, 11.23%, and 10.93% respectively.
At the other end of the scale comes Palma with 0.54%, a low figure attributable to the fact that holiday lets in apartments are banned.
These are official figures, but the actual number of homes being rented out to tourists is considerably higher, Palma being a case in point. Tackling illegal lets is a majority priority for the Balearic Government and the Council of Mallorca, which has formalised an agreement with the Tax Agency for pursuing fines; the Tax Agency is expected to be vastly more efficient in this regard than the Council's tourism inspectorate.
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I recall an article not so long ago, perhaps by Andrew Ede, that identified up to a third of all existing properties in towns and villages dotted around Mallorca are empty, in poor condition or uninhabitable. If that was accurate then there are more of these properties than tourist rentals. Who is decrying that neglect and waste? Perhaps Council’s need to lobby for compulsory purchase rights to rebuild or repair these properties to ease the housing problem. They need to do something and godknows there are plenty of builders on the island.
Why is that this “news paper” appears to be running a campaign in favor of the hotel lobby against those letting privately. The housing crisis was started because the hotels wanted workers and as was pointed out recently have gradually changed all their staff accommodation into more letting rooms.