Brits own 42,000 properties in Tenerife

How many properties in Tenerife are British owned?  A question often asked, but one which few have been able to venture anything less than a speculative answer. There is no single database, government or otherwise, with this information.  Tenerife Property Shop, well known as a reliable source of information about the property market in Tenerife, has released a new report which gathers together research undertaken by various bodies including Spanish Insight, Spanish Government (Ministry of Housing, Ministry of the Interior), Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, IESE Business School, El Mundo, ICEX, APCE, AFI and Barclays Bank.

Most British owners of Spanish property own holiday homes or property investments and are not resident in Spain. However some British people have bought property and moved to Spain on a permanent or semi-permanent basis and many of these have chosen to become resident in Spain.  Tenerife has 27,667 EU residents, of which 8,029 are British. 
One thing is the number of British nationals who are resident. Quite another is the number of properties owned by the British, which would include holiday homes and investments. Not all the British who are Tenerife resident own property in Tenerife. On the one hand the number for residents include couples that live in one property owned between them and on the other hand there will be residents who are dependents or who rent. No exact figures are available but it is fair to assume that there may be some 16-20,000 British nationals who are resident on the island.

Moving on to the total number of Tenerife properties owned by British nationals, including holiday homes and investments, there are no exact figures available. However various studies have been done to try and estimate this number. We would like to stress that there are no definitive figures available on this subject, and what figures do exist show considerable variations.

The most comprehensive study available was conducted by a research consultancy (AFI) on behalf of the Spanish Association of Developers (APCE). According to this study there were 1.63 million tourist properties in Spain owned by foreigners in 2002. Of these 35% were owned by the British, which equals 570,000 properties. The same report estimates that by the end of 2003 there were 1.72 million tourist properties owned by foreigners in Spain, of which the British owned 36%, or approximately 620,000 - an annual increase of 50,000.

Based on different sources and assumptions we have a range for the number of properties in Spain that belong to British nationals at the end of 2003 of between 563,000 and 620,000, of which 50,000 are primary residencies, leaving between 513,000 and 570,000 as second homes / investments.

Assuming these figures to be more or less correct, then we would expect the breakdown of Canarian properties owned by the British to be some 78,000, or 42,000 in Tenerife.

A recent survey by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister reports that only 155,000 households in England have a second home / property investment outside of the UK. The report concedes that it is likely to be understating the true figure and that it does not include Scottish, Welsh and expatriate English buyers, but the margin of error would have to be very wide to reconcile 77,500 English owners with 600,000 British owners.
A study by IESE - Spain's leading business school - and Grupo i, estimated the total stock of tourist / holiday properties in Spain at the end of 2001 to be no more than 946,999 units. Given the intensity with which new properties are being built in Spain's coastal areas this would have increased to around 1.2 million by the end of 2003. It is difficult to believe that half of all the stock of second homes in Spain belong to the British, even if the British are buying annually 40% of all new homes in Spanish coastal areas as recently reported in a report by Barclays Bank.

And then there are some respectable sources that put the number much higher than 600,000.  The Channel 4 website says "Spain is the number one destination for UK second homebuyers and over two million Britons own a property on its shores."

In conclusion, Tenerife Property Shop believe that 600,000 British owned Spanish properties is the most realistic estimate, of which 42,000 are in Tenerife, given the information available to date.  Tenerife Property Shop update their research constantly and work with other bodies in order to improve the accuracy of their data.