To millions of British and German tourists, Mallorca is simply one on a list of Spanish package destinations offering the standard summer fare of white beaches, late-night drinking and familiar food.
Between April and October a shuttle service of low-cost airlines disgorge the sun-starved masses into the island's outsized airport, from whence they file into cheap hotels lining the coast around the capital, Palma.
However, popular perceptions often mask a more diverse reality. And, just as there is a lot more to neighbouring Ibiza than ecstasy-fuelled raves and allinclusive family resorts, so Mallorca, the largest of the Balearic islands, offers a panoply of landscapes, experiences and accommodation options.
International property hunters have, for decades, viewed Mallorca as an idyllic Mediterranean retreat from the stresses of high finance, celebrity fame or plain urban existence.
Spain's royal family have their official summer residence near Palma, where King Juan Carlos' enthusiastic patronage of the local yachting scene has helped to consolidate the island as a global reference for the sport.
Hollywood couple Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones are regular visitors to the island's ruggedly mountainous north-west coast, to picturesque villages such as Sóller. In 1990 Douglas paid just a few million euros for a 19th-century Sicilian-style mansion in this region, before spending double that on renovations.
On the more developed north-eastern side, tennis legend Boris Becker has his converted Mallorcan finca – or country estate – on the market at 15m. Claudia Schiffer, the model, and Formula One hero Michael Schumacher are also part-time residents.
However, their luxury homes pale beside “Cielo de Bonaire”, a grandiose marble-filled mansion with a heliport, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, lush terraced gardens and dramatic sea views that, at 50m, must be one of the most expensive properties on the market in Spain, according to developers Kühn & Partner.
Between this extreme and the sunburnt hordes on the popular beaches is the island's unassuming south-east, a classic slice of Mediterranean topography comprising some of Mallorca's finest beaches and coves, a sprinkling of picturesque sandstone and whitewashed villages, vineyards, almond groves, salt pans and a real estate market catering to most tastes and budgets.
Despite its special attractions, Mallorca has not been immune to the downturn in sales and prices affecting most other residential tourist spots in Spain. According to the latest quarterly index compiled by Kyero.com, the real estate website, the average property on the island cost 454,000 in January, compared with 475,000 at the same time last year, off a high of 504,000 in April 2007. Most property agents agree, however, that the south-east should prove as resistant to the slump as more high-end areas on the island. Kühn & Partner notes “disproportionate interest” by investors, mainly from Germany, the UK and mainland Spain. The reasons for this are clear enough.
Although not devoid of the sort of mass-scale resort development that has blighted large parts of Spain since the 1960s tourist drive, the region has been saved from excess by its fiercely rural tradition and relative remoteness from Palma.
It also boasts two of Mallorca's most important conservation areas – the Mondragó reserve and Cabrera island national park – as well as the largest privately owned reserve, around Cap de Ses Salines. Es Trenc is regularly cited as the island's best beach.
To millions of British and German tourists, Mallorca is simply one on a list of Spanish package destinations offering the standard summer fare of white beaches, late-night drinking and familiar food.
Between April and October a shuttle service of low-cost airlines disgorge the sun-starved masses into the island's outsized airport, from whence they file into cheap hotels lining the coast around the capital, Palma.
However, popular perceptions often mask a more diverse reality. And, just as there is a lot more to neighbouring Ibiza than ecstasy-fuelled raves and allinclusive family resorts, so Mallorca, the largest of the Balearic islands, offers a panoply of landscapes, experiences and accommodation options.
International property hunters have, for decades, viewed Mallorca as an idyllic Mediterranean retreat from the stresses of high finance, celebrity fame or plain urban existence.
Spain's royal family have their official summer residence near Palma, where King Juan Carlos' enthusiastic patronage of the local yachting scene has helped to consolidate the island as a global reference for the sport.
Hollywood couple Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones are regular visitors to the island's ruggedly mountainous north-west coast, to picturesque villages such as Sóller. In 1990 Douglas paid just a few million euros for a 19th-century Sicilian-style mansion in this region, before spending double that on renovations.
On the more developed north-eastern side, tennis legend Boris Becker has his converted Mallorcan finca – or country estate – on the market at 15m. Claudia Schiffer, the model, and Formula One hero Michael Schumacher are also part-time residents.
However, their luxury homes pale beside “Cielo de Bonaire”, a grandiose marble-filled mansion with a heliport, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, lush terraced gardens and dramatic sea views that, at 50m, must be one of the most expensive properties on the market in Spain, according to developers Kühn & Partner.
Between this extreme and the sunburnt hordes on the popular beaches is the island's unassuming south-east, a classic slice of Mediterranean topography comprising some of Mallorca's finest beaches and coves, a sprinkling of picturesque sandstone and whitewashed villages, vineyards, almond groves, salt pans and a real estate market catering to most tastes and budgets.
Despite its special attractions, Mallorca has not been immune to the downturn in sales and prices affecting most other residential tourist spots in Spain. According to the latest quarterly index compiled by Kyero.com, the real estate website, the average property on the island cost 454,000 in January, compared with 475,000 at the same time last year, off a high of 504,000 in April 2007. Most property agents agree, however, that the south-east should prove as resistant to the slump as more high-end areas on the island. Kühn & Partner notes “disproportionate interest” by investors, mainly from Germany, the UK and mainland Spain. The reasons for this are clear enough.
Although not devoid of the sort of mass-scale resort development that has blighted large parts of Spain since the 1960s tourist drive, the region has been saved from excess by its fiercely rural tradition and relative remoteness from Palma.
The result has been a surge of townhouse construction on the fringes of Campos and nearby Santanyí, once a medieval stronghold against Turkish and Berber pirates whose labyrinthine beauty has made it a popular base for local and foreign artists. The new units are in response to demand from Palma-based workers prepared to commute into the capital in return for a quieter life after hours. This trend, in turn, reflects the deeper sociological shift resulting from Mallorca's conversion in the past 40 years from a rural society to one grown rich from tourism.
Village mansions and large rural estates have been freed up by the changes, as families have shrunk or dissipated, making maintenance costs an unjustifiable burden. The island's strict heritage rules forbid demolition of listed 18th and 19th century piles, with their Arab-tile roofs, intricate stonework and sunny courtyards. However, this is no impediment to renovation. Danés, who is himself the heir of a moneyed Mallorcan clan, is currently converting three such properties into luxury serviced suites, with an eye on young, well-heeled professionals from northern Europe.
This quest for comfortable, though low-key, Mediterranean living has drawn a lot of foreign investors to the undulating countryside north of Santanyí.
Known in some circles as the “Hamburg Hills”, the country estates, farmhouses and new finca-style villas around the villages of Cas Concos and Calonge have been drawing holiday home-buyers from Germany since the late 1980s. In those days the attraction was price and an escape from the beer-drenched tribes in the more developed areas.
According to Nils Haase of Engel & V?lkers' south-east Mallorca office, demand and prices have ebbed and flowed with the passing of each new shock. The global recession saw them tail off in the early 1990s, and lurid press coverage in Germany about the despoliation of Mallorca – sparked by government plans for an “eco-tax” on hotel guests in 1999 – had the same effect. The levy, of about 1 a night, was finally introduced in 2002 but was ditched a year later after lobbying by tourism operators.
With foreigners again feeling welcome on the island, holiday homes sales have recovered in recent years, aided by low interest rates and a pick-up in Europe's main economies. According to Haase, 2007 has been “the best year ever” in terms of sales volumes and prices. Engel & Volkers calculates the average price of a three-bedroom, 350 sq metre country house to be 1.3m, up more than 50 per cent since 2001.
“Mallorca has gone in and out of fashion during the last 25 years,” says Matthias Kühn, of Kühn & Partner. “In the past few years wealthy Europeans have come once again to view it as an acceptable place to have a second or third home.”
“As the south-east has always been the least developed part of the island, this means its appeal can only grow.”
To millions of British and German tourists, Mallorca is simply one on a list of Spanish package destinations offering the standard summer fare of white beaches, late-night drinking and familiar food.
Between April and October a shuttle service of low-cost airlines disgorge the sun-starved masses into the island's outsized airport, from whence they file into cheap hotels lining the coast around the capital, Palma.
However, popular perceptions often mask a more diverse reality. And, just as there is a lot more to neighbouring Ibiza than ecstasy-fuelled raves and allinclusive family resorts, so Mallorca, the largest of the Balearic islands, offers a panoply of landscapes, experiences and accommodation options.
International property hunters have, for decades, viewed Mallorca as an idyllic Mediterranean retreat from the stresses of high finance, celebrity fame or plain urban existence.
Spain's royal family have their official summer residence near Palma, where King Juan Carlos' enthusiastic patronage of the local yachting scene has helped to consolidate the island as a global reference for the sport.
Hollywood couple Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones are regular visitors to the island's ruggedly mountainous north-west coast, to picturesque villages such as Sóller. In 1990 Douglas paid just a few million euros for a 19th-century Sicilian-style mansion in this region, before spending double that on renovations.
On the more developed north-eastern side, tennis legend Boris Becker has his converted Mallorcan finca – or country estate – on the market at 15m. Claudia Schiffer, the model, and Formula One hero Michael Schumacher are also part-time residents.
However, their luxury homes pale beside “Cielo de Bonaire”, a grandiose marble-filled mansion with a heliport, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, lush terraced gardens and dramatic sea views that, at 50m, must be one of the most expensive properties on the market in Spain, according to developers Kühn & Partner.
Between this extreme and the sunburnt hordes on the popular beaches is the island's unassuming south-east, a classic slice of Mediterranean topography comprising some of Mallorca's finest beaches and coves, a sprinkling of picturesque sandstone and whitewashed villages, vineyards, almond groves, salt pans and a real estate market catering to most tastes and budgets.
Despite its special attractions, Mallorca has not been immune to the downturn in sales and prices affecting most other residential tourist spots in Spain. According to the latest quarterly index compiled by Kyero.com, the real estate website, the average property on the island cost 454,000 in January, compared with 475,000 at the same time last year, off a high of 504,000 in April 2007. Most property agents agree, however, that the south-east should prove as resistant to the slump as more high-end areas on the island. Kühn & Partner notes “disproportionate interest” by investors, mainly from Germany, the UK and mainland Spain. The reasons for this are clear enough.
Although not devoid of the sort of mass-scale resort development that has blighted large parts of Spain since the 1960s tourist drive, the region has been saved from excess by its fiercely rural tradition and relative remoteness from Palma.
The result has been a surge of townhouse construction on the fringes of Campos and nearby Santanyí, once a medieval stronghold against Turkish and Berber pirates whose labyrinthine beauty has made it a popular base for local and foreign artists. The new units are in response to demand from Palma-based workers prepared to commute into the capital in return for a quieter life after hours. This trend, in turn, reflects the deeper sociological shift resulting from Mallorca's conversion in the past 40 years from a rural society to one grown rich from tourism.
Village mansions and large rural estates have been freed up by the changes, as families have shrunk or dissipated, making maintenance costs an unjustifiable burden. The island's strict heritage rules forbid demolition of listed 18th and 19th century piles, with their Arab-tile roofs, intricate stonework and sunny courtyards. However, this is no impediment to renovation. Danés, who is himself the heir of a moneyed Mallorcan clan, is currently converting three such properties into luxury serviced suites, with an eye on young, well-heeled professionals from northern Europe.
This quest for comfortable, though low-key, Mediterranean living has drawn a lot of foreign investors to the undulating countryside north of Santanyí.
Known in some circles as the “Hamburg Hills”, the country estates, farmhouses and new finca-style villas around the villages of Cas Concos and Calonge have been drawing holiday home-buyers from Germany since the late 1980s. In those days the attraction was price and an escape from the beer-drenched tribes in the more developed areas.
According to Nils Haase of Engel & V?lkers' south-east Mallorca office, demand and prices have ebbed and flowed with the passing of each new shock. The global recession saw them tail off in the early 1990s, and lurid press coverage in Germany about the despoliation of Mallorca – sparked by government plans for an “eco-tax” on hotel guests in 1999 – had the same effect. The levy, of about 1 a night, was finally introduced in 2002 but was ditched a year later after lobbying by tourism operators.
With foreigners again feeling welcome on the island, holiday homes sales have recovered in recent years, aided by low interest rates and a pick-up in Europe's main economies. According to Haase, 2007 has been “the best year ever” in terms of sales volumes and prices. Engel & Volkers calculates the average price of a three-bedroom, 350 sq metre country house to be 1.3m, up more than 50 per cent since 2001.
“Mallorca has gone in and out of fashion during the last 25 years,” says Matthias Kühn, of Kühn & Partner. “In the past few years wealthy Europeans have come once again to view it as an acceptable place to have a second or third home.”
Between April and October a shuttle service of low-cost airlines disgorge the sun-starved masses into the island's outsized airport, from whence they file into cheap hotels lining the coast around the capital, Palma.
However, popular perceptions often mask a more diverse reality. And, just as there is a lot more to neighbouring Ibiza than ecstasy-fuelled raves and allinclusive family resorts, so Mallorca, the largest of the Balearic islands, offers a panoply of landscapes, experiences and accommodation options.
International property hunters have, for decades, viewed Mallorca as an idyllic Mediterranean retreat from the stresses of high finance, celebrity fame or plain urban existence.
Spain's royal family have their official summer residence near Palma, where King Juan Carlos' enthusiastic patronage of the local yachting scene has helped to consolidate the island as a global reference for the sport.
Hollywood couple Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones are regular visitors to the island's ruggedly mountainous north-west coast, to picturesque villages such as Sóller. In 1990 Douglas paid just a few million euros for a 19th-century Sicilian-style mansion in this region, before spending double that on renovations.
On the more developed north-eastern side, tennis legend Boris Becker has his converted Mallorcan finca – or country estate – on the market at 15m. Claudia Schiffer, the model, and Formula One hero Michael Schumacher are also part-time residents.
However, their luxury homes pale beside “Cielo de Bonaire”, a grandiose marble-filled mansion with a heliport, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, lush terraced gardens and dramatic sea views that, at 50m, must be one of the most expensive properties on the market in Spain, according to developers Kühn & Partner.
Between this extreme and the sunburnt hordes on the popular beaches is the island's unassuming south-east, a classic slice of Mediterranean topography comprising some of Mallorca's finest beaches and coves, a sprinkling of picturesque sandstone and whitewashed villages, vineyards, almond groves, salt pans and a real estate market catering to most tastes and budgets.
Despite its special attractions, Mallorca has not been immune to the downturn in sales and prices affecting most other residential tourist spots in Spain. According to the latest quarterly index compiled by Kyero.com, the real estate website, the average property on the island cost 454,000 in January, compared with 475,000 at the same time last year, off a high of 504,000 in April 2007. Most property agents agree, however, that the south-east should prove as resistant to the slump as more high-end areas on the island. Kühn & Partner notes “disproportionate interest” by investors, mainly from Germany, the UK and mainland Spain. The reasons for this are clear enough.
Although not devoid of the sort of mass-scale resort development that has blighted large parts of Spain since the 1960s tourist drive, the region has been saved from excess by its fiercely rural tradition and relative remoteness from Palma.
It also boasts two of Mallorca's most important conservation areas – the Mondragó reserve and Cabrera island national park – as well as the largest privately owned reserve, around Cap de Ses Salines. Es Trenc is regularly cited as the island's best beach.
To millions of British and German tourists, Mallorca is simply one on a list of Spanish package destinations offering the standard summer fare of white beaches, late-night drinking and familiar food.
Between April and October a shuttle service of low-cost airlines disgorge the sun-starved masses into the island's outsized airport, from whence they file into cheap hotels lining the coast around the capital, Palma.
However, popular perceptions often mask a more diverse reality. And, just as there is a lot more to neighbouring Ibiza than ecstasy-fuelled raves and allinclusive family resorts, so Mallorca, the largest of the Balearic islands, offers a panoply of landscapes, experiences and accommodation options.
International property hunters have, for decades, viewed Mallorca as an idyllic Mediterranean retreat from the stresses of high finance, celebrity fame or plain urban existence.
Spain's royal family have their official summer residence near Palma, where King Juan Carlos' enthusiastic patronage of the local yachting scene has helped to consolidate the island as a global reference for the sport.
Hollywood couple Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones are regular visitors to the island's ruggedly mountainous north-west coast, to picturesque villages such as Sóller. In 1990 Douglas paid just a few million euros for a 19th-century Sicilian-style mansion in this region, before spending double that on renovations.
On the more developed north-eastern side, tennis legend Boris Becker has his converted Mallorcan finca – or country estate – on the market at 15m. Claudia Schiffer, the model, and Formula One hero Michael Schumacher are also part-time residents.
However, their luxury homes pale beside “Cielo de Bonaire”, a grandiose marble-filled mansion with a heliport, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, lush terraced gardens and dramatic sea views that, at 50m, must be one of the most expensive properties on the market in Spain, according to developers Kühn & Partner.
Between this extreme and the sunburnt hordes on the popular beaches is the island's unassuming south-east, a classic slice of Mediterranean topography comprising some of Mallorca's finest beaches and coves, a sprinkling of picturesque sandstone and whitewashed villages, vineyards, almond groves, salt pans and a real estate market catering to most tastes and budgets.
Despite its special attractions, Mallorca has not been immune to the downturn in sales and prices affecting most other residential tourist spots in Spain. According to the latest quarterly index compiled by Kyero.com, the real estate website, the average property on the island cost 454,000 in January, compared with 475,000 at the same time last year, off a high of 504,000 in April 2007. Most property agents agree, however, that the south-east should prove as resistant to the slump as more high-end areas on the island. Kühn & Partner notes “disproportionate interest” by investors, mainly from Germany, the UK and mainland Spain. The reasons for this are clear enough.
Although not devoid of the sort of mass-scale resort development that has blighted large parts of Spain since the 1960s tourist drive, the region has been saved from excess by its fiercely rural tradition and relative remoteness from Palma.
The result has been a surge of townhouse construction on the fringes of Campos and nearby Santanyí, once a medieval stronghold against Turkish and Berber pirates whose labyrinthine beauty has made it a popular base for local and foreign artists. The new units are in response to demand from Palma-based workers prepared to commute into the capital in return for a quieter life after hours. This trend, in turn, reflects the deeper sociological shift resulting from Mallorca's conversion in the past 40 years from a rural society to one grown rich from tourism.
Village mansions and large rural estates have been freed up by the changes, as families have shrunk or dissipated, making maintenance costs an unjustifiable burden. The island's strict heritage rules forbid demolition of listed 18th and 19th century piles, with their Arab-tile roofs, intricate stonework and sunny courtyards. However, this is no impediment to renovation. Danés, who is himself the heir of a moneyed Mallorcan clan, is currently converting three such properties into luxury serviced suites, with an eye on young, well-heeled professionals from northern Europe.
This quest for comfortable, though low-key, Mediterranean living has drawn a lot of foreign investors to the undulating countryside north of Santanyí.
Known in some circles as the “Hamburg Hills”, the country estates, farmhouses and new finca-style villas around the villages of Cas Concos and Calonge have been drawing holiday home-buyers from Germany since the late 1980s. In those days the attraction was price and an escape from the beer-drenched tribes in the more developed areas.
According to Nils Haase of Engel & V?lkers' south-east Mallorca office, demand and prices have ebbed and flowed with the passing of each new shock. The global recession saw them tail off in the early 1990s, and lurid press coverage in Germany about the despoliation of Mallorca – sparked by government plans for an “eco-tax” on hotel guests in 1999 – had the same effect. The levy, of about 1 a night, was finally introduced in 2002 but was ditched a year later after lobbying by tourism operators.
With foreigners again feeling welcome on the island, holiday homes sales have recovered in recent years, aided by low interest rates and a pick-up in Europe's main economies. According to Haase, 2007 has been “the best year ever” in terms of sales volumes and prices. Engel & Volkers calculates the average price of a three-bedroom, 350 sq metre country house to be 1.3m, up more than 50 per cent since 2001.
“Mallorca has gone in and out of fashion during the last 25 years,” says Matthias Kühn, of Kühn & Partner. “In the past few years wealthy Europeans have come once again to view it as an acceptable place to have a second or third home.”
“As the south-east has always been the least developed part of the island, this means its appeal can only grow.”
To millions of British and German tourists, Mallorca is simply one on a list of Spanish package destinations offering the standard summer fare of white beaches, late-night drinking and familiar food.
Between April and October a shuttle service of low-cost airlines disgorge the sun-starved masses into the island's outsized airport, from whence they file into cheap hotels lining the coast around the capital, Palma.
However, popular perceptions often mask a more diverse reality. And, just as there is a lot more to neighbouring Ibiza than ecstasy-fuelled raves and allinclusive family resorts, so Mallorca, the largest of the Balearic islands, offers a panoply of landscapes, experiences and accommodation options.
International property hunters have, for decades, viewed Mallorca as an idyllic Mediterranean retreat from the stresses of high finance, celebrity fame or plain urban existence.
Spain's royal family have their official summer residence near Palma, where King Juan Carlos' enthusiastic patronage of the local yachting scene has helped to consolidate the island as a global reference for the sport.
Hollywood couple Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones are regular visitors to the island's ruggedly mountainous north-west coast, to picturesque villages such as Sóller. In 1990 Douglas paid just a few million euros for a 19th-century Sicilian-style mansion in this region, before spending double that on renovations.
On the more developed north-eastern side, tennis legend Boris Becker has his converted Mallorcan finca – or country estate – on the market at 15m. Claudia Schiffer, the model, and Formula One hero Michael Schumacher are also part-time residents.
However, their luxury homes pale beside “Cielo de Bonaire”, a grandiose marble-filled mansion with a heliport, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, lush terraced gardens and dramatic sea views that, at 50m, must be one of the most expensive properties on the market in Spain, according to developers Kühn & Partner.
Between this extreme and the sunburnt hordes on the popular beaches is the island's unassuming south-east, a classic slice of Mediterranean topography comprising some of Mallorca's finest beaches and coves, a sprinkling of picturesque sandstone and whitewashed villages, vineyards, almond groves, salt pans and a real estate market catering to most tastes and budgets.
Despite its special attractions, Mallorca has not been immune to the downturn in sales and prices affecting most other residential tourist spots in Spain. According to the latest quarterly index compiled by Kyero.com, the real estate website, the average property on the island cost 454,000 in January, compared with 475,000 at the same time last year, off a high of 504,000 in April 2007. Most property agents agree, however, that the south-east should prove as resistant to the slump as more high-end areas on the island. Kühn & Partner notes “disproportionate interest” by investors, mainly from Germany, the UK and mainland Spain. The reasons for this are clear enough.
Although not devoid of the sort of mass-scale resort development that has blighted large parts of Spain since the 1960s tourist drive, the region has been saved from excess by its fiercely rural tradition and relative remoteness from Palma.
The result has been a surge of townhouse construction on the fringes of Campos and nearby Santanyí, once a medieval stronghold against Turkish and Berber pirates whose labyrinthine beauty has made it a popular base for local and foreign artists. The new units are in response to demand from Palma-based workers prepared to commute into the capital in return for a quieter life after hours. This trend, in turn, reflects the deeper sociological shift resulting from Mallorca's conversion in the past 40 years from a rural society to one grown rich from tourism.
Village mansions and large rural estates have been freed up by the changes, as families have shrunk or dissipated, making maintenance costs an unjustifiable burden. The island's strict heritage rules forbid demolition of listed 18th and 19th century piles, with their Arab-tile roofs, intricate stonework and sunny courtyards. However, this is no impediment to renovation. Danés, who is himself the heir of a moneyed Mallorcan clan, is currently converting three such properties into luxury serviced suites, with an eye on young, well-heeled professionals from northern Europe.
This quest for comfortable, though low-key, Mediterranean living has drawn a lot of foreign investors to the undulating countryside north of Santanyí.
Known in some circles as the “Hamburg Hills”, the country estates, farmhouses and new finca-style villas around the villages of Cas Concos and Calonge have been drawing holiday home-buyers from Germany since the late 1980s. In those days the attraction was price and an escape from the beer-drenched tribes in the more developed areas.
According to Nils Haase of Engel & V?lkers' south-east Mallorca office, demand and prices have ebbed and flowed with the passing of each new shock. The global recession saw them tail off in the early 1990s, and lurid press coverage in Germany about the despoliation of Mallorca – sparked by government plans for an “eco-tax” on hotel guests in 1999 – had the same effect. The levy, of about 1 a night, was finally introduced in 2002 but was ditched a year later after lobbying by tourism operators.
With foreigners again feeling welcome on the island, holiday homes sales have recovered in recent years, aided by low interest rates and a pick-up in Europe's main economies. According to Haase, 2007 has been “the best year ever” in terms of sales volumes and prices. Engel & Volkers calculates the average price of a three-bedroom, 350 sq metre country house to be 1.3m, up more than 50 per cent since 2001.
“Mallorca has gone in and out of fashion during the last 25 years,” says Matthias Kühn, of Kühn & Partner. “In the past few years wealthy Europeans have come once again to view it as an acceptable place to have a second or third home.”