Tejeda sells rural houses at bargain prices while Gran Canaria's coast breaks price records

While Gran Canaria's coast racks up one record house price after another, the municipality of Tejeda, right in the heart of the island at the foot of the Roque Nublo, offers one of the most striking contrasts in the island's property market: traditional stone-and-tile houses priced well below average, with few interested buyers.

A municipality losing population

According to municipal demographic data, Tejeda is one of the least densely populated municipalities in Gran Canaria, a trend that has persisted for decades due to the lack of job opportunities outside agriculture and rural tourism. This depopulation explains, according to property sources, why much of the municipality's traditional housing stock remains empty or is falling into gradual disrepair.

Prices that find no buyers

Property portals put the average house price in Tejeda well below that of coastal municipalities such as Mogán or San Bartolomé de Tirajana, but even at those prices turnover is low, largely limited to weekend second homes or rural tourism projects.

Rural tourism as a lifeline

Some of the homes that do find a buyer end up converted into rural guesthouses or countryside tourist accommodation, capitalising on the scenic appeal of the Nublo Rural Park and growing demand for hiking breaks, an activity Tejeda town council sees as key to slowing the municipality's demographic decline.

An imbalance that worries the Cabildo

The Gran Canaria Cabildo has repeatedly warned of the risk of the island consolidating a two-speed model, with a coast saturated by property pressure and an interior losing population and basic services, and has proposed tax incentives to attract new residents to mid-altitude municipalities such as Tejeda, Artenara or Valsequillo.