Alicante Province Deep Dive

The province of Alicante is one of Spain's most sought-after property markets, attracting both Spanish and international buyers. Its coastline, the Costa Blanca, draws most of the attention, but the province is far from uniform: each area has its own price level, pace and buyer profile, and inland municipalities follow a very different pattern from the coast.

Three municipalities are used throughout as reference points: Jávea in the north, and the city of Alicante and Torrevieja in the south. Where this report compares north and south, the north refers to Dénia, Jávea, Calpe and Benidorm, and the south to Alicante, Elche, Torrevieja and Orihuela.

This deep dive covers prices, transactions, new builds, population, foreign residents, climate, amenities and airport access, to show where the market stands today and where it may be heading.

Every graph, map and table in this deep dive is created by Fitin, exactly as it appears on the platform, and you can build the same for your own clients in less than 10 minutes.

Key Insights

Market activity: prices up, sales down
Across the province, the average price per m² rose by around 24% between 2024 and 2026. Over the same period, activity weakened. In the first four months of 2026, 16,390 homes were sold, 14% fewer than in the same months of 2025, and the decline shows in both the north and the south. Changes in activity often show up before changes in price.

The south drives the volume, the north sets the price
Torrevieja, Alicante, Orihuela and Elche together account for around 40% of all sales in the province, and Torrevieja is the single busiest municipality. The north remains considerably more expensive, at around €3,100 per m² in 2026 against around €2,200 in the south.

Demand: a growing population
Population grew across most of the province between 2021 and 2025, coastal and inland alike, with several municipalities growing by more than 12%. Municipalities with a larger foreign population also tend to sit at higher price points. Population growth and international demand are the two forces underneath the price trend.

Market

Prices over time

Across the province of Alicante, prices have risen steadily since early 2024, by around 24% on average between 2024 and 2026. In January 2024, homes sold for an average of around €1,650 per m². Growth was gradual through 2024, reaching around €1,820 by the end of the year, before accelerating from spring 2025 to a peak of around €2,150 in August. After a brief pause in the autumn, prices resumed their climb in 2026, moving between €2,050 and €2,170 per m² from January to May, before jumping to around €2,330 in June and €2,260 in July. Single months can swing, so the trend matters more than any single figure.

How Alicante compares

Compared with the other provinces Fitin covers, Alicante remains the most affordable, at an average of €1,949 per m² in 2025, against more than €3,600 in Madrid and around €2,900 in Barcelona and Málaga. Its pace of growth sits in the middle of the group: prices rose by 11.2% between 2024 and 2025, level with Málaga and Girona, faster than Barcelona (8.3%) and slower than Madrid (15.1%).

Where prices are highest

The map below shows prices concentrated along the coast. The highest band, above €2,200 per m², covers most of the coastline, while many inland municipalities stay below €1,000. In many smaller inland municipalities, too few homes are sold for a price to be published.

Where prices are rising fastest

Mapping the change in prices shows how broad the increase has been. Most of the province, coastal and inland, saw prices rise by between 12% and 60% between 2024 and 2026. Only a few small inland municipalities buck the trend, including Benidoleig in the north and Cox and Redován near the Región de Murcia border. All three record few sales, so a handful of transactions can move their figures sharply.

North versus south

The three reference municipalities show how differently the coast moves. Jávea is the most expensive and the most volatile. Its monthly average swings by several hundred euros because relatively few homes sell there each month, but it has risen from around €2,900 per m² in 2024 to around €3,600 so far in 2026, with July above €4,100. Alicante and Torrevieja track each other closely, both starting around €1,700 per m² in 2024 and averaging around €2,150 and €2,300 respectively in 2026. In relative terms, the gap between north and south has held steady: in both 2024 and 2026, Jávea sold at around 70% more per m² than Alicante.

Sales activity

Between 2024 and 2025, around 55,000 to 56,000 homes were sold in the province each year, typically between 4,000 and 5,500 a month, with a sharp dip each August when notaries' offices slow down. In 2026, activity fell. January to April saw 16,390 sales, 14% fewer than in the same months of 2025. Including May to July, the drop widens to around 17%, steeper in the north (20%) than in the south (17%), although these latest months are likely to be revised upwards as late deeds are recorded. Prices are still rising while fewer homes change hands. That is the signal worth watching, because changes in activity often appear before changes in price.

The slowdown is not unique to Alicante. Across the five provinces Fitin covers, 2025 was already a mixed year: sales dipped slightly in Alicante and fell more clearly in Madrid and Málaga, while Barcelona and Girona still grew by around 7–8%. Since then, the picture has turned. In the first seven months of 2026, sales fell in all five provinces compared with the same months of 2025, by between 10% and 18%. Alicante recorded the steepest decline, just ahead of Madrid.

Mortgages and buyers

Mortgage data adds an important layer. At the height of the pre-2008 boom, around 6,700 home mortgages were registered each month in the province of Alicante. By 2013, that had fallen to around 700. Since then, lending has recovered gradually, to around 2,000 a month in 2025 and 2026, still less than a third of the pre-crisis peak. Today's prices are not being driven by the kind of credit that fuelled the last boom.

Set against sales, the mortgage data also shows how buyers are financing their purchases. In 2024, the number of home mortgages equalled roughly a third of all recorded sales; so far in 2026, it is closer to half. Mortgage lending has held up while sales have fallen, which suggests that the slowdown in 2026 is concentrated among buyers who do not rely on a mortgage. Mortgages are registered some weeks after the sale, and not every mortgage finances a purchase, so these shares are approximate, but the direction is clear.

New-build transactions

New homes make up a steady share of the market. According to notarial data, around 11% of sales in the province were new homes in each year from 2024 to 2026, so new supply has neither dried up nor accelerated.

New-build activity is concentrated in municipalities that don't always match the province's best-known names. According to the Ministry of Transport, Torrevieja leads with 176 new-build transactions, ahead of Alicante (131), Orihuela (127) and Guardamar del Segura (125). Finestrat (109), Elche (95), Villajoyosa (81) and Pilar de la Horadada (77) follow. Jávea, the priciest of the reference municipalities, ranks ninth at 72: a high price and high new-build volume don't necessarily go together. San Juan de Alicante completes the top ten at 56.

Demographics

Prices and sales show how the market is moving, but not who is driving it, or where the population itself is growing. Two measures help fill that gap: population change and the share of foreign residents.

The map below shows population change by municipality between 2021 and 2025. Growth is broad-based across the province, coastal and inland alike, with several municipalities growing by more than 12%. One clear exception stands out inland in the north, near the Valencia border, where population declined by more than 4% while the municipalities around it grew.

The share of foreign residents varies widely. In Torrevieja, almost half of residents are foreign nationals, and in Orihuela and Benidorm more than a third. In the city of Alicante the share is 21%, and in Elche, the province's second city, 14.4%.

Placing that share against price for every municipality shows a clear positive relationship: municipalities with a larger foreign population tend to sit at higher price points. The relationship is not tight. A handful of municipalities near €1,000 per m² still have foreign-resident shares above 20%, while those above €3,000 range from roughly 20% to 50%. International demand shapes price, but it is not the only factor at work.

Environment

Temperature is where the coastal-inland divide shows most clearly. Yearly averages across the province range from about 13.5°C to 19.8°C. They are warmest along the immediate coastline, especially around Alicante and Torrevieja, and coolest further inland. Jávea, the most northerly of the three reference municipalities, still sits at the warmer end of the scale, which shows that this divide runs between coast and interior rather than between north and south.

Lifestyle

Fitin tracks three lifestyle measures. Hospitality covers restaurants, cafés, bars, pubs and fast food outlets. Leisure covers playgrounds and entertainment venues. International services cover the everyday infrastructure that matters most to foreign residents: banks, pharmacies, ATMs and international or private schools.

Benidorm leads with 1,084 hospitality locations, ahead of Alicante (966) and far ahead of Torrevieja (523). Alicante leads on leisure locations (249) and is a close second on international services (204), behind Benidorm (241). Jávea, the priciest of the reference municipalities, has among the fewest hospitality and leisure locations of the ten shown (232 and 24): its appeal rests on the property and setting, not amenity density. Torrevieja offers far more everyday infrastructure at a considerably lower price.

Infrastructure

The municipalities closest to the airport cluster around Alicante and Elche. Santa Pola (9.5 km), Alicante (10.4 km) and Elche (10.9 km) top the list, followed by a ring of inland towns: San Vicente del Raspeig, San Juan de Alicante, Mutxamel, Monforte del Cid, Aspe, Agost and San Fulgencio, all within about 21 km. Easy airport access is very much an advantage of the southern half of the province.

How agents use this

Buyers today take longer to decide, compare more options and negotiate harder. Local knowledge remains essential, but clients increasingly want to see the evidence behind the advice.

A buyer choosing between areas. A client is weighing the north of the province against the south. You show how far apart they are on price, how fast each is moving, how actively each trades, and how far each is from the airport.

A seller asking about timing. A homeowner in Jávea wants to know whether now is the moment to sell. You show how prices in their municipality have developed, and that sales across the province have slowed while prices kept rising.

An international buyer exploring the region. A client is new to the province of Alicante. You show where the international communities are, how the climate varies between coast and interior, and which areas offer the amenities and connections they need.

Learn more

This deep dive covers the whole province. As a Fitin customer, you can create the same analysis for your own region, using only the data and insights that matter to your client.

Request a demo and we will show what is moving in your market.

Transaction data comes from the Consejo General del Notariado and typically becomes available around two months after the month it describes. Recent months may be revised as more deeds are recorded.