French tourists become buyers in Menorca’s changing property market

After falling in love with island living while working on the Caribbean’s Saint Martin, Frenchman Franck Marrot and his partner Valérie wanted somewhere closer to their home in south-west France. After considering Ibiza, Mallorca and Corsica they moved to Menorca, one of Spain’s Balearic Islands. “Protected from overdevelopment, it is a beautifully simple and safe place to live,” says Franck, 54. “Not every house is owned either by a German or a British person [like on Mallorca].”

With lower-density locales becoming more popular during the Covid era, demand for properties on Menorca has increased. Declared a Biosphere Reserve in 1993 by Unesco, much of the island’s coastline is characterised by pristine capes, islets and calas, or coves, reached by only foot or boat. Quiet lanes lined with drystone walls criss-cross the rural interior dotted with low-slung stone farmhouses.

However, with Corsica Ferries resuming a direct route between the island and Toulon in southern France this summer, these roads have become noticeably busier. “It is like a snowball effect, someone comes on holiday from Paris, buys a house, tells their friends, then they come, they buy one,” says Marrot, whose street food business, Piqniq, is profiting.

French tourists on Menorca have been steadily increasing for several years — between 2014 and 2019 numbers tripled from 19,472 a year to 60,646, according to figures from the Agencia de Turismo de las Islas Baleares — and are now beginning to dominate the market for luxury homes.

At high-end estate agent Engel & Völkers, French buyers accounted for half of its sales last year, followed by the Spanish (34 per cent), Austrians and Italians (8 per cent each)

Prices have been increasing. Between 2015 and 2020, the average property price on Menorca increased 22 per cent to €189,459, according to the Ministerio de Fomento — still significantly lower than the €303,415 average on Mallorca last year.

Due to the pandemic, property sales on Menorca dropped 20 per cent in 2020. The latest official figures available show there were 370 transactions in the first quarter of 2021 — still 10 per cent lower than in the first quarter of 2019.

Marrot lives close to the old Arabic capital of Ciutadella in the west of the island — one of the two largest towns, along with Mahón (the modern capital at the eastern end). Most buyers want a country house with a pool and privacy, but supply of these is limited, says Nicolas Andral of buying agency Minorque Privée. “Being able to find a quiet beach close to nature is key for French buyers,” he says.

At the top end of the market, Menorca’s luxury homes are half the price of what they might be on Ibiza, says Sergio Ogazón of high-end estate agency Lucas Fox. Few homes on Menorca cost more than €5m.

Engel & Völkers says the average price of the properties it has sold on Menorca this year is €1,106,250, a slight increase on 2020’s €1.1m but up from €890,000 in 2019.

While UK buyers used to dominate the holiday-home market on Menorca — in 2018, British and Irish buyers made up 27 per cent of Engel & Völkers’ sales, outnumbering both Spanish and French buyers (23 and 18 per cent) — numbers have dwindled since Brexit, several agents report.

Many British retirees have been moving home, says Pimms Chetwynd-Talbot, an estate agent with Bonnin Sanso. “We’ve had 20 British buyers this year but 27 sellers — those getting older are worried about Covid,” she says.

The British have tended to gravitate toward the south-east coast — around Binibeca, Es Castell and Sant Lluís — where quaint two-bedroom fishermen’s houses can cost from €300,000. The expense of private healthcare for relocating Britons post-Brexit has been a deterrent, says Wendy Mitchell, co-founder of lifestyle magazine Menorca Life. “The cost of living has increased.”

Not a lot of French buyers relocate fully — there are no international schools for a start — and the cool Menorcan winter is a deterrent, says Francisco Arnau Lopez, director of Engel & Völkers Menorca. “Also the airport [practically] closes down in October,” he says, referring to the lack of direct flights until the spring, apart from those to Barcelona, Madrid or Mallorca.

Strict planning rules prevent the building of new rural homes and alterations to many existing ones. Rustic estates can be renovated to perform a tourist function, and this status also allows holiday rentals (properties with tourist licences tend to be restricted to coastal zones).

It is farmhouses repurposed as agroturismos or whitewashed rustic-chic boutique hotels that have become the face of Menorca’s high-end tourism. The arrival of one of Hauser & Wirth’s art galleries this summer — in a former hospital on Isla del Rey in Mahón harbour — has helped put the island on the radar of well-heeled visitors.

Lucy Gemmell — a food and event consultant from Wandsworth, south-west London, who has owned an old five-bedroom farmhouse in Sant Climent since 2008 — says the island has been moving upmarket in recent years, and the restaurants improving.

“We’ve never seen a summer so busy here, we’ve had a lot of people arriving by yacht and private jet,” she says. Her favourite restaurants include Bambú in Binibeca, Mon in Ciutadella and Torralbenc in Alaior.

Not all the locals think the increase in such tourists a good thing, says Marrot. “They have seen the changes on Ibiza and Mallorca in the past 10 years and don’t want Menorca to go the same way.”

What you can buy for . . . 

€365,000 A traditional three-bedroom villa in Es Castell, on the island’s east coast. On the market with Bonnin Sanso.

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€650,000 A five-bedroom country house in Ciutadella, west Menorca. For sale with Lucas Fox.

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€6.8m A contemporary seven-bedroom villa on the seafront at Cala Llonga, Mahón, with its own mooring. Available through Engel & Völkers.

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