There is one comment we know by heart at BuenApart.
We post an apartment for sale on social media. A few hours later, someone writes: “Go home.” Sometimes in English, sometimes in Spanish, sometimes in versions we won’t repeat here.
The message never changes. Foreigners are buying up Valencians’ homes, pushing prices through the roof, and have no business being here.
That comment deserves a real answer. Not a polite one. An answer with numbers, and with a question nobody ever asks: who is selling?
Maricarmen, 87: the face of those the boom pushes out
Let’s start with the people who have every right to be angry.
On 23 September 2026, in Madrid, police evicted Maricarmen from the flat in the Retiro district where she had lived since she was 17. She is 87. The company that owns the building wanted €1,650 a month in rent, a 275% increase. It was the fourth eviction attempt. She left for hospital, with nowhere to go.
Her story set the whole country alight. In Valencia, hundreds of people are camping outside City Hall, demanding an end to evictions, limits on tourist flats and tighter rules for large landlords.
We understand that anger. In Valencia, the price per square metre hit €3,485 in July 2026, a record, up 8% in a year. For a young Valencian couple, a long-standing tenant or a pensioner who has rented for forty years, that rise is not a statistic. It means being forced out to the suburbs, or worse.
But look closely at who evicted Maricarmen. Not a Dutch retiree. Not an American couple. A Spanish investment company.
On the other side of the table: the people who sign with a smile
Now let’s talk about the people nobody mentions.
Every time a foreigner buys an apartment in Valencia, someone sells it to them. And very often, that seller is Valencian. They bought twenty years ago. They inherited their parents’ flat. They want something bigger, a place by the beach, a way to help their children.
And on that day, at the notary’s office, they discover their home is worth far more than they ever imagined.
Let’s be honest: how many owners complain about rising prices at the moment they sign? We have worked with a great many sellers. We have never seen a single one turn down an offer because the buyer held a foreign passport.
That is Valencia’s paradox in 2026. You can find the rise unfair when you are looking for a home, and well deserved when you are selling one. Often it is the same family. The parents sell at the top of the market, and the children can no longer afford to buy.
Both realities exist at once. The debate becomes dishonest the moment one of them is hidden.
The uncomfortable number: 87% of buyers are Spanish
In the first quarter of 2026, according to Spain’s land registries, foreign buyers accounted for 13.05% of home purchases in the province of Valencia. In other words, nearly 87% of buyers are Spanish.
And that 13% includes every foreign national, including those who have lived, worked and paid taxes here for years.
Heavy foreign demand does exist, just somewhere else: in the province of Alicante, foreigners buy 44.65% of homes. Valencia is not the Costa Blanca.
So yes, international demand weighs on the Valencia market. But it comes after a longer list: too little new housing, tourist rentals, institutional investors, Spaniards moving in from Madrid or Barcelona, students, remote workers. Blaming the buyer’s passport is comfortable. It is also wrong 87 times out of 100.
Who sets the price? The owner. Not the agency.
Here is the other accusation we hear: “International agencies are pushing prices up.”
Let’s get the order right. An agency does not set the price of an apartment. The owner decides the asking price, and the buyer decides whether to pay it. The agency advises. It signs nothing on anyone’s behalf.
And our advice, very often, is to lower it.
Every week an owner calls us with a price lifted from a property portal, inflated by 15 or 20%, because “the neighbour sold for that” or because “foreigners pay more”. Foreigners do not pay more. They compare, they get valuations, they negotiate, and they walk away when a price is out of touch.
An overpriced apartment does not sell. It sits online for six months, it goes stale, and it ends up selling below its real value.
Do the maths. On a €300,000 apartment, listing it €30,000 higher would earn the agency an extra €600 in fees. For six months of pointless viewings. No serious agency has any interest in inflating a price. Our interest is to sell, quickly and well.
Our job: bring every property back to its fair price
BuenApart is a real estate agency based in Valencia. We work with buyers and sellers from many countries, and with Spanish clients too: Valencian sellers, Dutch, Belgian and American buyers, and Valencians selling to other Valencians.
Our job is not to decide who has the right to buy in Valencia. Our job is to connect the people who sell with the people who buy, at a fair price: the one the real market pays, not the one an owner hopes for.
In practice, that means:
- valuing a property on sales actually signed in the same street, not on portal listings;
- turning down a listing when the asking price has no chance of selling;
- telling a buyer from abroad that an apartment is overpriced, even when it is one of ours.
A market where prices match reality is a market where homes sell, where sellers stop dreaming, and where buyers, wherever they come from, including those who buy remotely, do not pay a premium. That is our way, at our scale, of not pouring fuel on the fire.
The market is more complicated than a nationality
So yes, housing has become a real issue in Valencia. Yes, prices have risen sharply. Yes, people like Maricarmen are paying the price of a system that no longer protects tenants.
But boiling it all down to “foreigners are taking locals’ homes” tells only part of the story. And it is the part that suits everyone: it avoids talking about the missing supply, the funds buying entire buildings, and the local owners selling to the highest bidder.
One simpler question remains: what does “go home” actually mean?
After ten years in Valencia, with a job, friends, a neighbourhood life, a child in school here, where exactly does “home” begin and end? The answer is less simple than an Instagram comment.
As for “Go home”?
We read it. We talked it over.
And after some thought, our answer is pretty simple: no.
We love Valencia far too much.
PS: Feel free to keep telling us to go home. In the meantime, we will keep selling apartments to Spaniards, to people from abroad and to anyone who wants to live here. At a fair price.
Frequently asked questions
Are foreigners driving up property prices in Valencia?
They contribute, but they are a minority: 13.05% of purchases in the province of Valencia in the first quarter of 2026, against 44.65% in the province of Alicante. Limited supply, tourist rentals and investors weigh just as heavily.
Who sets the price of an apartment for sale?
The owner, always. The agency recommends a price, and the buyer accepts it or not. An agency has no interest in overpricing: an overpriced home stays unsold.
How much does a square metre cost in Valencia in 2026?
An average of €3,485/m² in July 2026 according to idealista, up 8% in a year, with wide gaps between neighbourhoods: around €5,100/m² in L’Eixample, under €2,500/m² in Rascanya.
How do you sell an apartment in Valencia at a fair price?
Start from sales actually signed in the neighbourhood, not from asking prices on portals, and work with an agency that reaches both local and international buyers. See what our clients say in their reviews.
Do you own an apartment in Valencia?
We will tell you what it is really worth, even if it is not what you hoped. Ask for a free, fair-price valuation, on site or remotely.