The Canaries are set off the coast of western Africa, it's often said that the Canaries have the best weather in Europe: hot and sunny all year round, perfect for those legendary beaches. This is one of the top choices for Britons escaping the wintry gloom, especially amongst the Woofties: 'well-off over fifties' with a yen for travel.
PRICES FOR A CANARIES PROPERTY - £54,000 TO £172,917
key facts
- Population: 1.9 million
- Capital: Santa Cruz de Tenerife
- Approx. exchange rate: £1 = €1.30
- Visas: None required
- Time difference: GMT
- Flight time from UK: 4 hours
- Major airports: Tenerife South, Tenerife North, Arrecife (Lanzarote), Puerto del Rosario (Fuerteventura), Gran Canaria
- Dialling code: 00 34
A decade ago, the Canaries were one of the most expensive regions in Spain, but today a property here costs 10 per cent less than on the Spanish mainland. Britons have been coming to the islands since the1980s, in numbers greater than any other nationality. So it's curious to learn from the Spanish Ministry of Housing that in late 2005, house prices rose by 1.6 per cent in Spain as a whole, but dropped by 2.14 per cent on Tenerife.
How can this possibly be? What about the superb, subtropical, year-round season? What about the easy access from the UK? Mark Stucklin, The Sunday Times' Spanish Property Doctor has one explanation for this. "They are that much farther away than the Costa del Sol and the Balearics, and they lack the glamour and cultural draws."
In other words, the Canaries aren't sexy. But that's hardly a surprise: it's widely known that they're more popular with seniors than with Europe's gilded youth, who have plenty of their own playgrounds in the Mediterranean (that four-hour flight really must be a drag for the Instant-Gratification Generation!)
Other regions are dynamic, targeting new audiences, whereas those who fell in love with Gran Canaria back in the 1980s may never holiday anywhere else but the Canaries. It doesn't mean that the Canaries got any worse: if they had, would Sheraton really be opening two huge new hotels there this very spring? There's no real cause for alarm that the Canaries are undergoing their own private price correction: this is what Stucklin had to say about them this time last year: "[I think] the Canaries will do well in the future, though it might not start next year. Relative to other coasts, property in the Canaries is now reasonably priced ... let us not forget that it is the only truly winter-sun destination in Europe."
