The 2,948-Home Shift: Why New Construction Is Moving to Mijas and Estepona

The most revealing Costa del Sol housing number this week is 2,948. That is how many new homes were approved in Mijas and Estepona during 2025: 1,670 in Mijas and 1,278 in Estepona. Together, those two municipalities captured almost half of all the new-home permits issued across Málaga’s coastal municipalities outside the provincial capital.

The contrast with Marbella is striking. Marbella remained the busiest sales market on the coast, with 4,407 completed transactions in 2025, yet only 449 new homes were permitted. In other words, the place with the deepest established demand was not the place creating the most new supply. Mijas and Estepona were.

For a buyer, that matters more than a simple league table of cranes. New-build choice determines how many locations, floor plans, price points, completion dates and specifications can be compared before a decision is made. The Costa del Sol is not running out of development; it is redistributing it. And in 2026, the buyer’s map is increasingly shaped by where there is enough land, planning capacity and price headroom to build at scale.

The Market Has Split: Sales in Marbella, Cranes in Mijas and Estepona

The new Vivienda en Costa 2026 figures reported from Tinsa by Accumin make the split unusually clear. Málaga’s coastal municipalities, excluding Málaga city, recorded 22,909 home sales in 2025, down 4.3% year on year. Over the same period, they recorded 6,163 new-home permits, up 20%.

That is a healthy sign for a market that has spent years talking about limited supply. But the new stock is not appearing evenly. Mijas alone accounted for 1,670 permits, a 104.4% increase on 2024. Estepona followed with 1,278. Marbella, despite leading sales, recorded 449 permits, down 44.2% year on year.

The permit-to-sales column is not a pipeline forecast. A building approved in 2025 can complete years later, and the 2025 sales total includes resale homes as well as new builds. What it does show is the relative intensity of new production. In Marbella, new permissions were equivalent to only about one home for every ten sales recorded that year. In Mijas, the ratio was roughly one for every two.

Mijas Is the Supply Story of 2026

Mijas is the clearest example of how quickly the development geography can change. Its 1,670 permits in 2025 were 104.4% higher than a year earlier. At the same time, the municipality still recorded 3,197 sales despite a 15.9% annual decline. This is not a small fringe market suddenly discovering property development; it is an established residential and second-home market adding supply at scale.

The 2026 data suggest that was not a one-off spike. In the first quarter, the Málaga architects’ association recorded 444 approved homes in Mijas. In the second quarter, Mijas again led both major free-market categories: 202 single-family homes and 342 multi-family homes, or 544 units in those two categories alone. That means almost a thousand Mijas homes were approved across the first half of 2026 before counting any minor category differences between the quarterly reports.

For buyers, the attraction is not simply volume. Mijas contains several distinct property markets. La Cala de Mijas operates as a compact coastal town with beach access, restaurants and golf close by. Calahonda is more established and apartment-led. Mijas Pueblo offers a very different hillside environment. Inland golf zones create space for lower-density developments that would be much harder to reproduce in central Marbella.

The price gap reinforces the supply logic. Idealista’s August 2026 asking average for Mijas was €3,711/m², up 8.9% year on year. La Cala de Mijas was higher at €4,593/m², up 10.7%, but the municipality still sits far below Marbella’s area-wide average. On very simple arithmetic, €750,000 corresponds to roughly 202 m² at the Mijas average, before allowing for terraces, plots, specification or a new-build premium.

Domosmar’s live stock supports the same picture from a buyer’s perspective. On 4 September, we had 29 available Mijas developments, with a median advertised development entry price of about €425,000. That does not mean every unit in those schemes costs €425,000; it means the median starting price across the developments in our current catalogue sits at a level that remains accessible relative to the prime Marbella market.

Estepona Has Become the Deepest New-Build Market

Estepona is different. Its construction boom is more mature, which is why the 2025 permit count of 1,278 homes actually represented an 18.9% fall from the previous year. Yet sales moved in the opposite direction: 3,475 transactions, up 9.9%. That combination — still-heavy construction with rising transaction volume — helps explain why Estepona has become the Costa del Sol’s broadest new-build hunting ground.

The start of 2026 remained busy. Estepona led the coast in the first quarter with 540 approved homes. In Q2, the architects’ data recorded another 311 free-market multi-family homes in Estepona, behind Mijas but still one of the strongest totals in the province. At the same time, 249 free-market multi-family homes were completed in Estepona during the quarter, showing that earlier phases of the pipeline are now turning into finished stock.

The town has also become materially more expensive. August asking prices averaged €4,961/m², up 17.4% year on year. Estepona Pueblo stood at €4,400/m², while Seghers was above €5,000/m². Anyone still thinking of Estepona as the cheap alternative to Marbella is using an old map.

What Estepona still offers is breadth. The market stretches from walkable town-centre apartments to the New Golden Mile, golf areas, hillside communities and larger resort-style schemes. Domosmar’s catalogue currently contains 83 available Estepona developments, almost three times the Mijas count and well over twice Marbella’s. The median advertised development entry price in that snapshot is about €569,000.

That depth is commercially useful for a buyer. It means there is often a real choice between immediate and later completion, beach and golf, compact two-bedroom and larger family layouts, simpler communities and amenity-heavy resorts. More supply does not guarantee a bargain, but it usually creates more opportunities to compare value rather than accepting the only suitable unit in a scarce micro-market.

Marbella Shows What Scarcity Looks Like

Marbella remains the demand benchmark. Its 4,407 transactions in 2025 were the highest on the Málaga coast, even after a 7.1% annual decline. But only 449 new homes were permitted, 44.2% fewer than in 2024. That imbalance helps explain why prime new-build stock can feel so thin relative to the number of people who want to buy there.

The asking-price hierarchy is already visible. Marbella averaged €5,956/m² in August 2026, up 4.0% year on year. Within the municipality, Nagüeles–Milla de Oro was at €8,336/m², Nueva Andalucía €6,239/m² and San Pedro de Alcántara €4,600/m². On the same crude €750,000 arithmetic used above, the Marbella-wide average corresponds to about 126 m², versus 151 m² in Estepona and 202 m² in Mijas.

That does not make Marbella the wrong choice. Scarcity is part of why the best Marbella locations retain such a strong premium. Buyers are paying for a combination that is hard to replicate: established international demand, restaurants, schools, services, golf, beach clubs, prime residential districts and a globally recognised address. But it does change the buying process. In a scarce segment, the question is often whether a particular unit justifies its premium. In Mijas or Estepona, the question can be which of several competing schemes offers the best balance.

There are signs of new activity in Marbella. After just 35 approved homes in Q1 2026, the second quarter included 328 free-market multi-family homes plus a 25-home protected scheme. So the market is not frozen. The wider point is that a single stronger quarter does not yet erase the much larger scale of the Mijas and Estepona pipelines.

The First Half of 2026 Says Supply Is Responding

At provincial level, the construction data are encouraging. The Málaga architects’ association recorded 3,195 approved homes in the first quarter of 2026, 37% more than the same period of 2025 and the strongest first-quarter figure in a decade. Q2 added another 2,363 homes. That puts the first-half total at 5,558 approved units across Málaga province.

The second quarter was slightly quieter than the 2,482 approvals recorded in Q2 2025, but completions moved the other way. 2,436 homes were finished in Q2 2026, up 20.1% year on year. In free-market multi-family construction alone, Mijas completed 301 homes, Estepona 249 and Marbella 122 during the quarter.

This is exactly what buyers should want to see in a rising market: not unlimited building, but a pipeline that is at least responding to demand. The Costa del Sol has absorbed large amounts of international and domestic demand over the past several years. If production remained permanently static while prices rose, the market would become progressively narrower. More choice in Mijas and Estepona gives buyers alternatives without requiring them to leave the western Costa del Sol.

What the Supply Shift Means for an Actual Buyer

The most practical consequence is that postcode and product are becoming more tightly linked. A buyer who wants maximum choice among modern apartments, energy-efficient construction, pools, gyms, coworking or later completion dates will currently see far more options in Estepona than in central Marbella. A buyer who wants more space per euro and a broad mix of coast, golf and hillside locations will find Mijas increasingly difficult to ignore.

Marbella still wins when the brief is specifically Marbella. If the buyer wants the Golden Mile, Nueva Andalucía or a particular school catchment, a cheaper development 25 kilometres away is not a substitute. Property comparisons only work when the lifestyle is comparable. The useful lesson from the supply data is not “buy Mijas instead of Marbella”; it is “do not assume the most famous market has the best new-build selection”.

There is also a negotiation and specification angle. In a market with several projects competing for the same buyer, differences in terrace size, parking, storage, communal facilities, payment stages and completion dates become more important. Some developments will be better value because the architecture is simpler. Others will justify a premium with position, views or lower density. The point is that a deeper pipeline lets the buyer compare those differences rather than simply asking whether anything suitable is available.

For budgets around €500,000, this geography becomes even clearer. Our recent analysis of Costa del Sol new builds around €500,000 found far more sub-€500,000 entry points in Mijas and the western value markets than in Marbella. Estepona sits between the two: no longer inexpensive, but still broad enough to offer multiple price bands.

The Next Edge of the Map Is Already Visible

Once Mijas and Estepona become more expensive, buyers naturally look one step further. Manilva averaged €3,035/m² in August 2026, up 11.3% year on year, and Domosmar currently has 19 available developments there with a median advertised entry point around €435,000. Fuengirola, meanwhile, averaged €4,451/m² and remains constrained by a much denser urban footprint, with 16 developments in our current catalogue.

That westward movement should not be read as a simple conveyor belt in which each town eventually becomes the next Marbella. The places are too different. Mijas has its own geography and golf-led inland market. Estepona has spent years improving its town centre and seafront while adding new residential zones. Manilva has a lower-density, lower-price profile and a different distance from Málaga Airport. Supply follows land and economics, but buyers still choose lifestyles.

Supply Is Finally Responding — Just Not Where Demand Was Strongest Yesterday

The encouraging part of the 2026 picture is that the Costa del Sol is not standing still. Málaga province is authorising and completing more homes, and the most active municipalities are creating meaningful choice for buyers. Mijas has accelerated sharply. Estepona has matured into a deep, multi-segment new-build market. Marbella remains the demand and prestige benchmark, but its relative scarcity increasingly defines the premium.

For someone buying today, the sensible approach is therefore to decide which part of the brief is fixed and which part is flexible. If the address is non-negotiable, accept that supply may be limited. If the priority is a modern home, strong specification, space, value and a choice of completion dates, widening the search from Marbella into Estepona or Mijas can change the shortlist dramatically.

The 2,948 permitted homes in Mijas and Estepona are not simply a construction statistic. They are evidence that the Costa del Sol’s growth is producing a new residential geography — one in which the best new-build opportunity may sit beside, rather than inside, the market with the biggest name.

Sources & Data Notes

Transaction and 2025 permit figures use Tinsa by Accumin’s Vivienda en Costa 2026 data as reported on 31 August 2026. Q1 and Q2 2026 construction data come from the Colegio Oficial de Arquitectos de Málaga and contemporary reports of its quarterly statistics. Asking-price figures are Idealista indices for August 2026 and are advertised prices, not completed transaction prices. Domosmar stock counts are a live internal catalogue snapshot on 4 September 2026 and are used only to illustrate current buyer choice on Domosmar, not total Costa del Sol supply.

• Málaga Hoy — Vivienda en Costa 2026 data, 31 August 2026
• SUR in English — Málaga Q1 2026 housing approvals, 16 April 2026
• Vida Económica — Málaga Q2 2026 permits and completions, 15 July 2026
• Idealista — Andalucía asking-price report, August 2026
• Colegio Oficial de Arquitectos de Málaga — housing statistics archive

If you are comparing current new developments, browse Mijas properties, Estepona properties and Marbella properties, or explore the full Costa del Sol new-build collection. If you want a shortlist based on budget, completion date and how you will actually use the home, contact Domosmar and we will compare the markets rather than simply sending the longest list.