Buying property on the Costa Blanca: North or South for your budget, with the 2026 prices from our catalogue

By RB Place, estate agency for the Costa Blanca, Costa Cálida and Costa de Almería, a trading name of Fiduciaire Bleich Sàrl, Geneva

Buying a property on the Costa Blanca starts with a question most Swiss buyers ask us in the first ten minutes: North or South? The two halves of the Alicante coast share a name and little else. The North, from Dénia to the hills behind Benidorm, is steep, green and expensive; the South, from Alicante to Pilar de la Horadada, is flat, sunny and the part of the coast where most of the new developments in our catalogue are built. This guide answers the question with figures rather than impressions: on 9 October 2026 we extracted the 869 new homes listed on our website and computed, for each coast, each town and each type of home, what developers are asking. The result is a map of what your budget buys where, from a first apartment under 300,000 € to a villa above a million. The detail sits inside the FAQ sections.

⚠️ The figures in this article are developer asking prices for new-build homes listed on our website on 9 October 2026, not a market statistic. They say nothing about resale homes, negotiated prices or the market as a whole. Medians and ranges are given only where at least five homes were listed.

In a nutshell

• In our catalogue, the median asking price is 502,000 € on the Costa Blanca North and 345,000 € on the Costa Blanca South, a gap of 45 %. Per square metre the gap is 24 %: 5,130 € against 4,146 €.

• Half of the homes listed in the South sit between 290,000 and 460,000 €. In the North, the middle half runs from 374,000 to 750,000 €, and there is almost nothing under 300,000 € outside the inland villages.

• The Costa Cálida, just south of the Costa Blanca, is the entry point of the coast: median 325,000 € and 3,729 € per square metre, with San Pedro del Pinatar under 300,000 €.

• The gap between the coasts is widest on villas (840,000 € in the North against 595,000 € in the South) and narrowest on apartments (374,365 € against 305,000 €).

• A bungalow, the two-level home with a garden or a solarium that defines the South, costs around 324,000 € there; the type barely exists in the North.

Two coasts under one name

The Costa Blanca is the coast of the province of Alicante, a little over 200 kilometres from Dénia in the north to Pilar de la Horadada in the south. The division into North and South is not administrative, it is the way agencies and buyers describe two landscapes. North of Alicante the mountains come down to the sea: Dénia, Jávea, Moraira, Calpe and Altea sit between rocky capes and small bays, Benidorm fills a single wide one, and Finestrat, Polop and La Nucía climb the slopes behind it. Building land is scarce, plots are steep, the old resort towns were built up decades ago, and new homes are mostly villas on hillside plots and apartments in a handful of towers and residential complexes. South of Alicante the land flattens into the Vega Baja and the salt lagoons of Torrevieja: Santa Pola, Guardamar, Torrevieja, Orihuela Costa and Pilar de la Horadada are a continuous ribbon of low-rise development, with the inland towns of Rojales, Algorfa, Benijófar, Los Montesinos and San Miguel de Salinas a few kilometres behind the beach. Here developers build whole residential estates and golf resorts at a time, and the choice of new homes in our catalogue is at its widest.

Our catalogue reflects that geography, with one convention to know: its regions follow the developers' commercial grouping, so the inland towns of the province of Alicante (Hondón de las Nieves and Monforte del Cid in the Vinalopó, Mutxamel behind Alicante) are counted with the North, and the Vega Baja towns behind Torrevieja with the South. Of the 869 homes listed on 9 October 2026, 442 are on the Costa Blanca South, 158 on the Costa Blanca North, 239 on the Costa Cálida in the region of Murcia, and 30 on the Costa de Almería. In the North, four towns account for two thirds of the listings: Finestrat, Villajoyosa, Benitatxell and Dénia. Jávea, Moraira and Altea, the names Swiss buyers know best, are almost absent, because few new developments are currently listed there. In the South, Torrevieja alone has 107 listings and Pilar de la Horadada 84.

Frequently asked questions

Where exactly does the North end and the South begin? At Alicante. The city and its northern suburbs (San Juan, Mutxamel, El Campello) are usually counted with the North, Santa Pola and everything below with the South. The line matters less than the landscape: ten minutes north of Alicante the coast is already rocky and hilly, ten minutes south it is flat.

Is the Costa Cálida part of the Costa Blanca? No. It is the coast of the region of Murcia, which starts at the regional border just past Pilar de la Horadada, at El Mojón and San Pedro del Pinatar, and runs along the Mar Menor and the open sea to Águilas. It is a different region with its own taxes and its own airport, but for a buyer looking at the southern Costa Blanca it is the natural extension, twenty minutes further down the motorway, and often cheaper.

What the two coasts cost in 2026

The median asking price of a new home is 502,000 € on the Costa Blanca North and 345,000 € on the Costa Blanca South. Half of the homes in the North are listed between 374,000 and 750,000 €, half of the homes in the South between 290,000 and 460,000 €. Part of the gap is size: the median home in the North has 103 square metres of interior space, the median home in the South 84. Per square metre, the North asks 5,130 € and the South 4,146 €, a difference of 24 % rather than 45 %. For comparison, the Costa Cálida is at 325,000 € and 3,729 € per square metre, and the Costa de Almería, with only 30 homes listed, at 383,950 € and 4,398 €.

Behind the regional medians, the towns tell a sharper story. In the North, Finestrat, with 50 homes listed, is the reference at 566,750 €; Villajoyosa is at 445,000 €, Dénia at 470,000 €, Calpe at 668,400 € and 8,009 € per square metre, and Benitatxell, where 17 homes are listed, 15 of them villas on the Cumbre del Sol cliffs, at 2,330,000 €. Inland, Hondón de las Nieves at 275,000 € and Monforte del Cid at 385,000 €, counted with the North in the catalogue although they sit in the Vinalopó valley, are the affordable addresses, at the price of a drive to the sea. In the South, Torrevieja is at 330,000 €, Pilar de la Horadada at 354,950 €, Guardamar del Segura at 317,500 €, San Miguel de Salinas at 316,000 € and Benijófar at 329,900 €; Orihuela Costa, where the Las Colinas and Campoamor villas sit, is at 477,500 €, and Algorfa, home of La Finca, at 519,000 €. The cheapest towns in the catalogue are inland in the Vega Baja: Cox at 235,000 €, La Marina at 299,000 € and San Fulgencio at 308,900 €.

Frequently asked questions

Why medians rather than averages? Because a handful of villas at two or three million euros would pull an average far above what most homes cost. The median is the price in the middle of the list: half the homes are cheaper, half more expensive. The ranges we quote are the middle half of the listings, which excludes the cheapest and the most expensive quarter. The price per square metre is the median of the price per square metre of each listing, not the median price divided by the median area. A listing is one home or one home type in a development, at the developer's asking price; a development with several types appears several times.

Are these prices negotiable? On a new home, rarely by much. Developers sell at a list price and prefer to add an extra (a parking space, kitchen appliances, a reduction on the second home in the same family) rather than lower it. Our guide to buying off plan explains how the payment schedule works.

Do the prices include taxes? No. A new home carries 10 % VAT plus stamp duty, 1.4 % in the Comunidad Valenciana since 1 June 2026 (1.5 % before) and a different rate in the region of Murcia and in Andalusia, plus notary, registry and lawyer. As a budgeting rule, allow 13 to 14 % on top of the figures in this article; the exact figure depends on the region, the fees and your file. Our tax guide for Swiss buyers sets out the detail.

Under 300,000 €: the South and the Costa Cálida

With 300,000 € before costs, the choice is on the Costa Blanca South and the Costa Cálida, and it is a choice of apartments and small bungalows. In Torrevieja, the median apartment is listed at 287,000 € for 67 square metres, which means a two-bedroom flat in a residential complex with a communal pool, a few streets from the beach or the salt lake; apartments in Torrevieja are the single largest group in our catalogue with 47 listings. In Guardamar del Segura, apartments are at 305,000 €, with the cheapest quarter under 252,000 €; in San Miguel de Salinas, apartments are at 272,950 € and bungalows at 261,400 €; in Santa Pola, apartments at 277,508 €. Inland, Cox at 235,000 € and the villages around Rojales offer a bungalow with a garden for the price of a flat on the coast, fifteen minutes from the beach.

On the Costa Cálida the same budget goes a little further. San Pedro del Pinatar, at the top of the Mar Menor, lists apartments at 254,000 € and bungalows at 304,900 €; Aguilas apartments are at 288,000 €, and the inland towns of Roldán, San Cayetano and Alhama de Murcia, around the golf resorts, between 257,000 and 284,000 €. In the North, 300,000 € buys a home only away from the sea: Hondón de las Nieves, in the wine country forty minutes inland, is at 275,000 €, and Mutxamel, behind Alicante, lists its first homes between 282,000 and 310,000 €. On the coast itself, only the cheapest quarter of apartments is listed under 327,000 € in Dénia and under 360,000 € in Finestrat.

Frequently asked questions

What does a 67 square metre apartment look like? Typically two bedrooms, one or two bathrooms, an open kitchen on the living room and a terrace, in a residential complex with a communal pool; a lift and a parking space are usual but not systematic, so check each listing. The surface in our catalogue is the indoor area declared by the developer; terraces and solariums are generally quoted separately, but the definitions (usable, built, with or without a share of common areas) vary from one developer to another, which is one more reason to read the prices per square metre as orders of magnitude.

Is a cheap town a bad town? Not in this part of Spain. Cox or San Fulgencio are ordinary Spanish towns where the price reflects the distance to the beach and the absence of a resort around the home, not a problem with the place. What they offer less of is rental demand and resale liquidity, which matters if the home is an investment as much as a holiday base.

300,000 to 500,000 €: the heart of the catalogue

This is where most of our clients buy, and where the two coasts overlap for the first time. In the South, the budget covers a wide choice of bungalows and penthouses and the first villas. Bungalows in Pilar de la Horadada, 43 of them listed, are at 349,900 € for 85 square metres; bungalows in Torrevieja at 339,000 €; penthouses in Torrevieja at 405,500 € and in Guardamar at 413,000 €; apartments in Orihuela Costa, close to the Campoamor and La Zenia beaches, at 369,000 €. On the Costa Cálida, Los Alcázares on the Mar Menor, with 59 listings, is the busiest town of the catalogue after Torrevieja and Pilar: apartments at 334,000 €, penthouses at 407,000 €, villas at 594,500 € with the first ones from 420,000 €.

In the North, the same budget buys an apartment, and a good one. The median North apartment is listed at 374,365 € for 80 square metres; in Finestrat, where the new residential complexes on the Sierra Cortina slopes look down on Benidorm and the sea, apartments are at 392,900 €; in Villajoyosa, the fishing town between Benidorm and Alicante, at 402,500 €; in Dénia at 330,000 € for the cheaper apartments and 499,000 € for a penthouse. Polop de la Marina, in the hills behind Benidorm, lists its first villas just under 500,000 €, with the median at 598,700 €. The point to take from these figures is that 450,000 € is a villa budget in the South and an apartment budget in the North.

Frequently asked questions

Bungalow, penthouse, chalet: what do these words mean here? A bungalow is a small two-level building, the ground floor with a garden and the upper floor with a solarium, sold as two separate homes; a penthouse is the top floor of a block, usually with a larger terrace or a private solarium; a chalet is a detached or semi-detached house, in our catalogue generally smaller and on a smaller plot than a villa. Our guide to property types describes each with its advantages.

Where is the better rental return? Our catalogue holds prices, not rents, so we do not publish yields. What the figures show is that a comparable home costs less to buy in the South and on the Mar Menor; whether that becomes a better return depends on the rents, the occupancy and the charges of the specific development, which its rental manager can document. The Comunidad Valenciana's tourist rental rules apply on both coasts of the Costa Blanca, and Murcia has its own; our guide to golf resort property covers the current licensing rules.

500,000 € to 1,000,000 €: villas on both coasts

Above 500,000 € the South becomes a villa market. The median villa on the Costa Blanca South is listed at 595,000 € for 131 square metres, with a private pool on a plot of 300 to 500 square metres. In Pilar de la Horadada villas are at 550,000 €, in Torrevieja at 585,000 €, in Los Montesinos at 464,950 €, in Algorfa, inside and around La Finca, at 729,500 €, and in Rojales, on the hills of Ciudad Quesada, at 741,500 €. San Miguel de Salinas, with its views over the salt lakes, lists villas at 630,000 €. On the Costa Cálida, villas are at 459,450 € in general, 594,500 € in Los Alcázares and 682,500 € in Torre Pacheco, where the Santa Rosalía resort pushes the figure up.

In the North, the same money buys a penthouse or a smaller villa. North penthouses are among the most expensive homes per square metre in the catalogue, at 6,471 €, behind Benitatxell and the Calpe apartments: 537,500 € in Finestrat, 650,000 € in Villajoyosa. Villas in Finestrat, 20 of them listed, are at 779,950 € for 156 square metres on a hillside plot; Polop de la Marina villas at 598,700 €. In Calpe, 644,200 € buys an apartment, not a villa: the town's new apartments on the seafront are at 7,677 € per square metre, the highest of any apartment group in the catalogue. The Costa Blanca North villa median, 840,000 €, already sits at the top of this band, and its upper quarter starts above two million.

Frequently asked questions

Why is a villa in the North so much more expensive than in the South? Land, for the most part. A South villa stands on a flat plot inside an estate built in one go; a North villa stands on a hillside plot, often with a sea view, in a municipality where buildable land is scarce. The house itself is often comparable; the plot and its location are not.

Can we finance a villa at this price with a Spanish mortgage? Spanish banks typically lend to Swiss residents up to about 60 to 70 % of the purchase price or the valuation, whichever is lower, on a finished home, in euros, subject to their acceptance of the file; they ask for a Spanish account, a NIE and income documents. For an off-plan villa the payments during construction come from own funds or from a loan on your Swiss home, and the Spanish mortgage is taken at completion. Our administrative support page describes what we prepare for the bank.

Above 1,000,000 €: the North's cliffs and the South's resorts

The million-euro market is small in both regions and concentrated in a few places. In the North it is Benitatxell, where the villas listed on the Cumbre del Sol cliffs between Jávea and Moraira are at 2,350,000 € and 10,751 € per square metre, with sea views from every room and plots of a thousand square metres or more; the two villas listed in Altea, at 2.1 and 2.4 million, and the upper quarter of Finestrat villas, between one and two million. In the South it is Orihuela Costa, where the villas of Las Colinas Golf, Campoamor and Cabo Roig are listed at 1,195,000 € for 197 square metres, and a few villas in Algorfa and San Miguel de Salinas above a million. The catalogue lists 37 homes above a million, in ten towns, and 25 above 1.5 million: villas in Benitatxell, Altea, Benissa, Calpe, Algorfa, Orihuela Costa and Torre Pacheco, plus a few seafront penthouses in Calpe.

At this level the question is less North or South than resort or cliff: a gated golf community in the South with its clubhouse, security and rental management, or a hillside plot in the North with a view and a town below. Both exist in the catalogue, and a viewing trip of two days can cover both, Benitatxell in the morning and Orihuela Costa in the afternoon, with Alicante airport in between.

Frequently asked questions

Is there a wealth tax above a million? Possibly, and it depends on more than the price: on the share each owner holds, on your other Spanish assets, on the debts that can be deducted and on the rules you fall under. Spain taxes non-residents on their net Spanish assets; the state allowance is 700,000 € per person, and a non-resident may opt for the rules of the region where most of their Spanish assets sit, which in the Comunidad Valenciana means an allowance of 1,000,000 € since the 2025 tax year. A mortgage reduces the taxable base only if the funds were used to buy the Spanish asset. The state solidarity tax on large fortunes starts, in practice, at 3.7 million of net Spanish assets (700,000 € allowance and a first band of 3 million at zero), and the wealth tax already paid is credited against it. Our tax guide explains the computation; have your case checked before buying at this level.

Which is the better investment at this level? We have no series of resale transactions, so we do not claim that one coast holds its value better than the other. What the catalogue shows is the shape of each market: the North's supply is scarce (158 listings, two thirds in four towns), the South's is deep and renewed every year. A scarce plot and a deep market are two different kinds of protection; ask us for the history of the specific development you are considering.

Beyond the price: what else separates the two coasts

Price is the first filter, not the last. The North is a year-round coast: Dénia, Jávea, Calpe and Altea have Spanish and Northern European residents living there in January, shops open, a market on Saturday, which matters if you plan to winter there or move there one day. The South is more seasonal in the beach towns and busier in the resort estates; Torrevieja and Orihuela Costa are lively all year, the smaller estates less so. The North has mountains, hiking and a steeper, cooler landscape; the South has flat cycling, golf and the Mar Menor's warm water. Alicante airport is forty minutes from Torrevieja and forty from Finestrat, so neither coast has an advantage there; Dénia and Jávea are an hour and a quarter, and the Costa Cálida has Murcia airport at Corvera.

Then there is what your money buys in space. The median home in the North has 103 square metres, in the South 84; at equal budget the South gives you a room more or a garden. And there is what is built: the South offers 442 new homes to choose from in every type and price, the North 158, two thirds of them in four towns, mostly apartments in Finestrat and Villajoyosa and villas on scarce plots. A buyer who wants a precise specification will find it in the South; a buyer who wants a precise place will pay for it in the North.

Frequently asked questions

We want a sea view. Which coast? The North, almost by definition: its hills put the view in reach of an apartment at 400,000 € in Finestrat or Villajoyosa. In the South, the land is flat and a sea view usually means a front-line position, which is rare in new build and priced accordingly, or a high floor.

We want a garden and a pool for 400,000 €. Which coast? The South or the Costa Cálida: a bungalow with a private garden on an estate with a communal pool, or a small chalet with its own pool inland. In the North, 400,000 € buys an apartment with a terrace on the coast, or a house with a garden inland.

Can we see both coasts in one trip? Yes, on two or three days from Alicante, which sits between them. We plan the days by area so that each one covers a single coast; our viewing trips page explains how it works.

How to use these figures

Treat them as a starting point for a brief, not as a valuation. Decide what matters first: a budget including the 13 to 14 % of costs, a type of home, a distance to the sea, a use (holidays, winters, year-round, rental). Then read the figures the right way round: if your budget is 350,000 € and you want a garden, the South and the Mar Menor are where to look; if it is 450,000 € and you want a view, the North has apartments for you; if it is 700,000 € and you want a villa with a pool, the South has dozens and the North a few. The figures date from 9 October 2026 and we will update this article when we refresh the extraction; the properties page shows the live listings behind them.

At RB Place, we support our clients at every stage, from finding the property through to signing, including the administrative and tax formalities.

Sources and methodology

• Method: extraction of the 869 new-build listings on our website on 9 October 2026 (one listing = one home or one home type in a development, at the developer's asking price); regions as grouped in the catalogue, inland towns of the province of Alicante counted with the North; medians and interquartile ranges of asking prices; price per square metre as the median of each listing's price divided by its declared indoor area; figures published only where at least five listings exist; two listings with an implausible area were excluded from the per-square-metre figures. Live listings: rbplace.com/properties

• Geography of the Costa Blanca (extent from Dénia to Pilar de la Horadada, province of Alicante): Wikipedia, Costa Blanca

• Stamp duty (AJD) in the Comunidad Valenciana at 1.4 % from 1 June 2026 and wealth tax allowance of 1,000,000 €: Ley 5/2025, de 30 de mayo, de la Generalitat, published in the BOE on 14 June 2025: boe.es; summary by Garrigues: garrigues.com

• Wealth tax 2025, main changes including the Comunitat Valenciana allowance: Agencia Tributaria, Manual práctico de Patrimonio 2025: sede.agenciatributaria.gob.es

• Solidarity tax on large fortunes, 700,000 € allowance for non-residents: Agencia Tributaria: sede.agenciatributaria.gob.es

• VAT on new homes, purchase costs and the declaration of a Spanish property from Switzerland: our tax guide for Swiss buyers in Spain

This article is for information only and is not legal, tax or investment advice. Prices are developer asking prices on our website on 9 October 2026 and change with each update of the catalogue; have your case analysed before taking any decision. Information current as of October 2026.