Empty houses

Half of the houses of the province are either empty or are second homes.

Alicante is the third zone of Spain with the most vacated houses.

Alicante is one of the provinces that in the last five years has been in the forefront of the " real estate boom ". The result is that 43% of the 980,048 houses in the province are empty or are a second residence i.e used for about 45 days per year, according to the last data publicised by National Institute of Estadística (INE).

Now that causes a problem to the economic infrastructure because shops and businesses cannot thrive in areas where homes are either totally unoccupied or are empty for such a large part of the year.