How vivienda.watch is calculated
Maps of published housing data for municipalities in Málaga province, Spain: Catastro's housing value zones and their published values (2022–2027), typical rents per census section from the Ministry of Housing (SERPAVI, 2011–2024) and homes advertised as tourist lets from INE (Aug 2020 – May 2026). Published data only: no forecasts, no estimates of market prices. A personal project, not an official product.
This page sets out, in one place, where each figure on vivienda.watch comes from and how it is calculated. The same text is in the map's “How to read this map” dialog.
Municipalities
- Estepona: Home values · Rent · Tourist lets
- Marbella: Home values · Rent · Tourist lets
- Mijas: Home values · Rent · Tourist lets
- Fuengirola: Home values · Rent · Tourist lets
- Benalmádena: Home values · Rent · Tourist lets
- Torremolinos: Home values · Rent · Tourist lets
- Málaga: Home values · Rent · Tourist lets
- Rincón de la Victoria: Home values · Rent · Tourist lets
- Vélez-Málaga: Home values · Rent · Tourist lets
- Nerja: Home values · Rent · Tourist lets
Home values
Zone outlines come from Catastro's value map for each year; values from Annex II.D of Catastro's annual urban market report (report year N sets the values for year N+1). The two sources agree for every zone and year but one: where they disagree, the report value is used and the panel shows both, marked sources disagree. Where a year's map file misplaces a zone, its outline from another year is used and the panel says so.
What a value means
Each zone has one typical property (size, plot, quality, condition) and one published value for it. Values are before the 0.9 reduction that gives the valor de referencia, and they lag the market: each release uses two full calendar years of notarial sales.
€/m² built puts flats and houses on one scale: the published €/m², or a house's published value per home divided by its built area. For houses this includes the plot, so it reads higher than a flat's €/m².
How changes are calculated
A change over several years is the product of the yearly steps. A step is real when the zone stayed like-for-like (same typical size, annexes, plot, quality and condition; the age may differ) and estimated otherwise, using the city's like-for-like change for that property type and year. Estimated steps show as ≈ … est. in the spot table, and zones that include them are drawn lighter. Grey means a value is missing somewhere in the range.
City figures in the overview chain those yearly like-for-like changes, weighted by homes, so every zone counts in the years it stayed comparable. Many zones show 0% in a year simply because Catastro didn't revise them.
Flags
- Dashed, no value: Catastro draws the zone but publishes no housing value that year, typically areas with very few homes or land under development.
- Redrawn (faded, dotted outline): the outline changed by 5% or more between the two years, so the change compares different areas; it is left out of the city figure for that year.
- ⚠ Unusual: a fully like-for-like change far outside the city's normal range for the period (beyond three times the interquartile range); it still counts but deserves a closer look.
- ⚠ Large fall: the zone's value fell more than 25% in one year with the same typical property. It is marked whatever the city's range.
- Based on few zones: a city figure where at least one year rests on fewer than 10 like-for-like zones.
Rent
- Typical rent paid is the median rent declared for flats let as a main home, per census section, from income-tax returns (SERPAVI, Ministry of Housing). It covers existing and new leases, not asking prices.
- Existing tenants is INE's experimental rent index (2015 = 100). It follows the rent on the same homes over time, so it rises more slowly than the typical rent paid. INE publishes it for municipalities of over 10,000 people and, in provincial capitals, for their census districts; not for sections.
- Change between years compares the median rent per m² in two years. Monthly rent is shown for information only, because it also moves when the size of rented flats changes.
- Sections with a light fill and a dashed outline have no published value in that year, or in one of the two years compared, usually because too few leases were declared. Nothing is estimated or filled in.
- Boundaries are the 2021 Census sections for every year, so any two years can be compared directly.
- New vs existing contracts: INE also splits its rent index by contract age, for provinces and from 2021 only. In Málaga province, rents on new contracts rose much faster than for sitting tenants, which explains most of the gap between the two measures above.
- Census districts are INE's statistical areas, numbered on the map. They are not the municipality's named districts. Where a municipality has only one, no district level is shown.
- Counts: the number of rented flats behind each figure is shown with it. Small numbers mean a figure can move a lot from year to year.
Tourist lets
- Tourist lets are homes advertised as tourist lets on the three main platforms, duplicates removed, from INE's experimental statistic on tourist dwellings. This is not the official register of licensed tourist homes: some advertised homes have no licence, and some licensed homes are not advertised. There are no prices.
- Share is listings divided by all dwellings in the census. Each section's listings and bed places are shown with it.
Tourist lets: why two series?
- Boundaries. INE published these figures on the 2011 Census sections until Aug 2023, and on the 2024 sections from Feb 2024. Sections are split and redrawn as areas grow, so the same section number can cover a different area in the other series.
- Aug 2023. INE published Aug 2023 under the 2021 section codes, but placed the listings on the 2011 sections: every section created since 2011 has none. So Aug 2023 is shown on the 2011 sections, as the last period of the first series. Its share is of the 2021 section's dwellings, so it is shown in full only where a section's 2011 and 2021 outlines are the same: they differ by less than 5% of the area, leaving aside differences within 10 m (the two maps are drawn a few metres apart), and fewer than 3 of the section's urban Catastro parcels (or under 2% of them) lie in it on one outline but not the other. The test counts Catastro parcels, not dwellings. Elsewhere INE's share is shown faded, with diagonal stripes and a dotted outline: it refers to a different area than the one drawn, so read it with care. It is left out of the top sections. Sections whose code no longer exists in 2021 have no share.
- Census base. The share is of all dwellings in the 2011 Census until Feb 2023, and in the 2021 Census from Aug 2023. Sections created after the 2021 Census have no share.
- Method. From Aug 2024, INE changed its counting method: listings carrying an Andalusian tourist-home licence (VFT; INE calls it VUT) are now included, after INE reviewed how it applies the regional rules. Counts before Aug 2024 are lower partly for that reason.
- Map: colours are comparable within a series, not across series. Moving the slider into another series redraws the map on that series' boundaries.
- Section chart: the section line only covers the periods of its own series, whose boundaries are the same.
- District and municipality: totals do not depend on section boundaries, so they run from Aug 2020. Counts break only at the method change; shares also change with the census base.
- Listings can move between sections. INE can move listings between neighbouring sections from one period to the next. A sudden rise in one section with a similar fall next door may reflect this rather than a real change.
- Year-on-year changes compare with the same month a year earlier, and are shown only when both periods use the same boundaries (for sections) and the same counting method. Otherwise they read "not comparable".
Sources and licences
- Home values: Dirección General del Catastro. Zone outlines from Catastro's online value map (mapa de valores), captured by hand, one file per municipality and year; values from Annex II.D of Catastro's annual Informe del Mercado Inmobiliario Urbano, 2021–2026. Catastro allows reuse of its data with attribution: “Fuente: Dirección General del Catastro”.
- Rent: Ministerio de Vivienda y Agenda Urbana (Sistema Estatal de Referencia del Precio del Alquiler de Vivienda, SERPAVI), reused under Ley 37/2007 with the attribution “Origen de los datos: Ministerio de Vivienda y Agenda Urbana”; and INE's experimental rent index (Índice de Precios de Vivienda en Alquiler), CC BY 4.0.
- Tourist lets: INE, Medición del número de viviendas turísticas en España y su capacidad (experimental statistic), CC BY 4.0. Census section boundaries: INE.
- Calculations: changes between years (estimated steps marked as such), sums and district outlines are calculated by vivienda.watch (elaboración propia) from the published figures. Nothing is forecast.
- Personal project, not affiliated with or endorsed by Catastro, the Ministry of Housing or INE.
Citing this site
Please cite the page address and the original source, for example: “vivienda.watch, from Dirección General del Catastro data” for home values, “vivienda.watch, from Ministerio de Vivienda y Agenda Urbana (SERPAVI) and INE data” for rent, and “vivienda.watch, from INE data” for tourist lets.