Wednesday, 17 April 2024, 10:04
After a slight drop in the third quarter of last year, the price of housing has risen once again in Malaga province, according to the latest data.
In the first three months of this year, the average price per square metre of a property for sale in the province has climbed to 2,412 euros, according to estate appraisal firm Gesvalt. It is 1.2% more than the figure recorded at the end of 2023 and about the same figure as a year ago, when the valuer’s studies showed an average price of 2,419 euros per square metre. The data shows the 4% drop in the prices of property for sale in Malaga in the third quarter of last year was a one-off event.
Additionally, rental prices continue to soar in both Malaga city and throughout the province. According to Gesvalt data, the average rental price at provincial level is 14.32 euros per square metre, which is 13.5% more than a year ago and 3.2% more than three months ago.
However, the increase in rent is most noticeable in Malaga city, where the average cost has risen to 14.41 euros per square metre, 16% more than a year ago, according to the data.
In Malaga city, the average price of housing for sale stands at 2,374 euros per square metre, which is 8% more than in the first quarter of 2023 and 2.5% more than in last year’s year-end report.
According to Gregorio Abril, Gesvalt’s regional director for Andalucía and Extremadura, house prices in Malaga are set to continue “the upward trend of recent months, but at a more moderate pace than in recent years, tending towards stabilisation, after the slight slowdown in demand caused by successive interest rate increases and a general economic slowdown”. “Once this phase has been overcome, and with the prospect of the next interest rate cuts, demand has once again been reactivated in a market that remains under pressure, pushing prices up again,” Abril said.
One of most active real estate markets in Spain
Malaga is one of the most active real estate markets in Spain, “with demand, both national and international, very active, compared to a supply that, despite the efforts of the city council and the great developer activity, is still insufficient to satisfy it”, the real estate expert added. “All these factors lead us to believe that there will not be a change in trend in the coming months and it is not possible to foresee when price rises will be limited.”
As for the unstoppable rise in rent, Abril pointed out that this is a “more paradigmatic issue than that of buying and selling”. “While supply is more limited than for sales, there is a transfer of demand from the buying and selling to the rental market, due to the number of buyers who are unable to afford the purchase of a home at current prices and decide to opt for renting as a way of life. Our forecast is that the current trend will continue over the next few years,” he added.
Throughout the province, Marbella continues to lead in rental prices with an average of 18.8 euros per square metre, 12% more than a year ago. Also noteworthy is the rise in rent in towns such as Torremolinos and Benalmádena, possibly due to the increase of prices in Malaga city leading to an increase in demand for rentals in these municipalities. In the case of Torremolinos, rent has risen to 14.6 euros per square metre and is now at the same level as Estepona, with a year-on-year increase of 12%, the data shows. At the other extreme, Velez-Malaga offers rents at half of those registered on the Costa del Sol, with prices around 7.5 euros per square metre.
In terms of homes for sale in Malaga municipalities with more than 50,000 inhabitants, Marbella continues to lead the way with an average cost of 3,202 euros per square metre, followed by Benalmádena, with 2,423 euros per square metre. In contrast, in the eastern part of Malaga province, the price drops to 1,391 euros, according to the data.
There is something about Opening Day in baseball that looks back even as it looks forward, a Mobius strip twist in time during which the past and future co-exist. The T-Mobile magenta carpet is rolled out, then rolled back for another year. One elevator attendant wore a button proclaiming this to be their fourth opening day; another, their 23rd. The pageantry at the ballpark is familiar, if staffed by new faces: different kids running around the bases and announcing “play ball”; a national anthem from a member of a band many of us have been listening to since the days of burning CD mixes. A different Mariners legend throwing out the first pitch: this year, Nelson Cruz, taking his place in the firmament of Mariners stars by signing a one-day contract to retire as a Mariner. He threw to Félix Hernández, himself already ensconced in eternal Mariners glory, in a perfectly chaotic first pitch that involved Nelson—who said he blew out his biceps tendon in one last farewell tour of LIDOM—spiking the ball into the ground, then recovering to lob in a pitch that Félix summarily dropped. Chaos ball, is that you?
Cruz was teammates with Mitch Haniger; when asked pregame to reflect on what Haniger was like in his “younger” playing years, Cruz smiled and said Mitch had always been very mature as a player. Haniger, making his return to T-Mobile Park, enjoyed a loud ovation when he ran down the magenta carpet, a Mariner once again: when he came up to bat for the first time, the fans gave him a standing ovation, something Mitch recounted warmly postgame, calling T-Mobile a “special” place to play.
But that ovation was nothing compared to the noise they made when Haniger homered to give the Mariners their first runs of the season:
While Haniger has historically gotten a lot of his power from the pull side, this ball—102.2 mph off the bat, 372 feet to the opposite field—showed some of the improvements he’s made during his time away from the team, something he credits to a deeper swing path and different rear-arm and top-hand mechanics.
Also so back: Dylan Moore’s power. After an injury-hampered 2022, DMo—pinch-hitting in the seventh for Mitch Garver—absolutely demolished this sinker from lefty Joely Rodriguez, crushing this pitch at 104 mph 409 feet. (Scoring on the play: Mitch Haniger, who had singled, natch.) DMo’s one job is beach, and by “beach” we mean “crush lefties”; if he can be back to his power-hitting form of the past, that’s an incredible boon for this ballclub.
Per Mariners PR, that makes DMo only the second player to hit a pinch-hit home run on Opening Day, joining Roberto Petagine on April 3, 2006. Unfortunately, that game was also a loss. The Mariners have generally had a good record on Opening Day, even in the fallowest years: per stats guru Alex Mayer, the Mariners have a .655 winning percentage on home openers, third-best among all active franchises. But tonight’s game will not join that rare air.
Luis Castillo had a lot of life on his pitches but poor command, and a patient Red Sox lineup was able to sit on his pitches and exhaust his pitch count early. The Sox drew first blood in the third inning, when Rafael Devers did what Devers does best and reached across the plate to pop this sinker that didn’t quite sink over the left-field fence for a two-run homer.
I was sitting next to Alex Mayer for this game and he immediately recalled (because he has an enormous baseball computer for a brain) Devers hitting a home run off a similar pitch from Sewald in 2022, so I looked up Devers’s zone splits and dang. Sometimes you just have to tip your cap.
The Sox would get another run off Castillo in the fourth: Triston Casas singled, and Masataka Yoshida doubled, bringing Tyler O’Neill (who is with the Red Sox now!), who had hit into a force out, to third. O’Neill would then score when Josh Rojas almost made a great play, snagging a sharply hit grounder from Ceddanne Rafaela and touching third for the force, but then his throw home hit O’Neill in the helmet. D’oh. Another run crossed home in the fifth, again with Devers providing a big hit with a double, pushing speedy Jarren Duran to third; he’d then score on a force out.
Speaking of Tyler O’Neill, he made some history of his own tonight, becoming the first player to homer in five straight Opening Day games, torching Cody Bolton for a solo shot. For O’Neill, the achievement was probably even sweeter coming against the team that traded him away. Everything that’s old is new again (derogatory).
That gave the Red Sox six runs, and the Mariners two two-run home runs. The Mariners lineup threatened at times tonight: they had a good chance in the first, when Julio worked an 0-2 count to a 2-2 count and doubled, followed by a single from Jorge Polanco, but Mitch Garver hit into an inning-ending double play. Later, Garver would double, but be stranded by a Cal Raleigh inning-ending groundout. J.P. Crawford hit two balls with exit velocities over 107 mph, right at defenders. That’s how things would go for the Mariners tonight: the sequencing luck just wasn’t there, even as the process was. Postgame, Haniger said the results weren’t there for the team tonight, but he likes the process, and he feels like this is the most complete Mariners team he’s been a part of—significant words coming from the man who was once Nelson Cruz’s teammate.
Layered on every Opening Day is the ghost of other, previous Opening Days: time spent with friends who have moved away, family members no longer with us, and to take stock of the changes for those that remain, steps a little slower, hair a little grayer. For me, this was my first Opening Day without my dad, who passed away this February. It’s hard knowing that he won’t be there to dissect the big plays of the night with me, that he won’t get to see what this team will become. He would have really loved to see Mitch Haniger’s second act as a Mariner. But mostly, it’s hard to know that he will now only exist in memories, the layers that make up every Opening Day experience. Maybe by this time next year it will be a fond memory, easier to see him woven into the fabric of the history of my personal Mariners fandom and the Opening Day experience writ large: another star in the firmament, and a reminder of how inextricably linked what was, is, and will be all are; maybe by then it will be easier to find the beauty in that. Maybe next year.