The village of Pájara loses residents while its own municipality's coast sees prices soar

The municipality of Pájara, one of the largest in Fuerteventura, sums up within its own borders the divide between the rural interior and the tourist coast: while the village of Pájara, the municipal seat, loses population and activity, coastal settlements such as Costa Calma and Morro Jable have some of the highest house prices on the island.

A historic centre with empty houses

In the village of Pájara, with its landmark Nuestra Señora de Regla church, many of the traditional houses remain unoccupied or are used only occasionally by relatives of former residents who moved to the coast in search of tourism jobs, according to council sources.

The coast absorbs all the investment

Figures from property portals show that virtually all of the municipality's property investment is concentrated on the coastal strip, where prices per square metre can be several times higher than in the village of Pájara.

Token prices inland

This weak demand keeps sale prices in the village of Pájara very low compared with the island average, occasionally attracting buyers looking for a quiet second home inland, away from the tourist bustle of the coast, although the volume of transactions remains negligible.

An imbalance that worries the Town Council

Pájara Town Council has on several occasions proposed measures to revitalise the municipality's interior, from restoration grants to the promotion of rural tourism, with the aim of halting the emptying-out of the historic centre in the face of the coast's overwhelming weight in the local economy and property market.

Religious heritage that draws occasional visitors

The Nuestra Señora de Regla church, with its baroque facade — unusual in the Canary Islands — draws occasional visits from tourists staying on the coast, although council sources acknowledge that this sporadic flow does not translate into any real interest in buying property in the village. Most people who visit Pájara do so on day trips, and that passing traffic generates no additional property activity in the historic centre.

Revitalisation programmes with limited results

Council restoration grants launched in recent years have managed to bring a handful of individual houses in the centre back into use, but Town Council sources admit the overall result remains modest against the scale of the depopulation problem. The comparison with the coast at Costa Calma and Morro Jable, the same sources note, is unavoidable, and reminds council officials each year of the scale of the territorial imbalance within a single municipality.