Real estate boom and crisis in the Canary Islands: Property dispossession and the resurgence of real estate

The Canary Islands is a special case of the accumulation model based on the financing of the built environment, which is responsible for considerable socio-spatial changes and numerous families losing their homes. The link between the real estate development, which started in the mid-1990s and the dispossession processes that have occurred since the crisis of 2007 is analysed on an island and intra-island scale; along with the recent real estate investment in the areas that have been the most affected by foreclosures. The data related to the production and prices of housing were obtained from the Ministry of Public Works and the National and Regional Statistical Institutes and those concerning the foreclosures from the General Council of the Judiciary. The results show that there are different models in the production of housing and in the volume of foreclosures, on an island scale. The crisis has exacerbated the pre-existing level of spatial inequality and social vulnerability by affecting not only the tourist resorts and the main cities, but also the working class residential areas as revealed by the intra-island analysis.