Cheap property in Alicante city: the urban market beyond the tourist coast

When investors talk about Alicante, they usually think of the tourist Costa Blanca: Benidorm, Torrevieja, Santa Pola, Guardamar. But the city of Alicante is a different place: a metropolis of 330,000 inhabitants (700,000 in the metropolitan area) that is a provincial capital, a university city, a rail and airport hub, and that has an urban housing market with its own logic, separate from the coastal tourist market.

Analysing Alicante city from the point of view of the long-term residential landlord reveals a market with good depth of demand, moderate prices in the working-class neighbourhoods and yields of 7-10%, above the Spanish average for cities of its size.

The price per square metre in the city of Alicante in 2026

The city of Alicante has an average price of between €1,400 and €2,200/m² in 2026. The most sought-after areas (the Barrio de Santa Cruz, the Postiguet, the Explanada de España, the area around Postiguet beach) have prices between €2,200 and €3,500/m². The working-class residential neighbourhoods (Jorge Juan, Pla del Bon Repós, Carolinas, Virgen del Remedio, El Pla) have prices between €900 and €1,400/m².

The neighbourhoods with the best ratios for residential investors

• Carolinas Bajas and Carolinas Altas: Working-class neighbourhoods north of the centre with a high density of workers' housing and solid rental demand. Prices between €900 and €1,300/m². Yields of 8% to 11%. One of the best neighbourhoods in Alicante for pure cash flow.
• Virgen del Remedio: A working-class neighbourhood in the north-west of the city. Prices between €800 and €1,100/m². Yields of 9% to 12%. The city's most affordable neighbourhood with an active rental market.
• Pla del Bon Repós: A neighbourhood in the north, with good tram links to the centre. Prices between €1,000 and €1,400/m². Yields of 7.5% to 9.5%.
• El Pla: A middle-class residential neighbourhood in the south-west. Prices between €1,100 and €1,500/m². Good rental demand from families with average purchasing power.
• San Blas: An outlying neighbourhood with a mix of working-class and student residents (close to the UA campus). Prices between €900 and €1,200/m². Mixed demand from workers and students. Yields of 8.5% to 11%.

The University of Alicante (UA): the most beautiful campus in Spain

The University of Alicante has some 28,000 students on its campus in San Vicente del Raspeig, which borders the municipality of Alicante to the north. It has the most admired campus in Spain for its looks (gardens, palm trees, modern architecture), and it has a high proportion of students from outside the province who look for rentals in the neighbourhoods close to the campus (San Blas, Carolinas, the area around the carretera de Valencia, the old Valencia road). Room-by-room letting in Alicante's university market produces yields of 9-13%.

The TRAM and connectivity as a value factor

Alicante has a tram line (the TRAM) that links the city with the airport and with the towns to the north (El Campello, Mutxamel/Muchamiel). The neighbourhoods with good TRAM links to the central Luceros station have more rental demand from workers who would rather not drive. A property 5 minutes' walk from a TRAM stop in Carolinas or Pla del Bon Repós has a yield advantage over a similar property without a tram connection.

The Comunitat Valenciana's ITP: the downside

The Comunitat Valenciana (the Valencian Community) has had an ITP (impuesto de transmisiones patrimoniales, the property transfer tax) of 9% since 1 June 2026 (11% if the property is worth more than a million), one of the highest in Spain. For a €100,000 purchase in Alicante, the ITP comes to €9,000. That entry cost has to be included in the yield calculation: at a gross yield of 9%, the cost of the ITP (9% of the purchase price) takes about 12 months to recover. Even so, the yields in Alicante's working-class neighbourhoods are high enough to offset the Valencian ITP quickly.

Related resources: For the analysis of the Costa Blanca and Alicante's tourist towns (a different market from the city's urban one), the article on cheap property on the Costa Blanca covers the coastal market. For the inventory of assets available in the province, see opportunities in Alicante. For the student model around the UA campus, the article on letting by the room has the full guide.