New-Build vs Resale Apartments on the Costa Blanca

Should you buy new build or resale on the Costa Blanca? Start with the supply, because it decides the question for most buyers before preference gets a say. Of the 2,108 properties live on our book today, 1,900 are new build and 208 are resale. Nine in ten. If you have set your heart on a characterful resale apartment in a specific town, the honest first question is whether that town has any resale stock at all.

The book is 1,900 new build to 208 resale

Two forces produced that ratio. Developers have been building hard along the Vega Baja and the Costa Blanca North for years, and each development lists as many separate units as it has plans – a single scheme can add twenty listings to a book overnight. Meanwhile resale owners on this coast tend to hold: a Spanish holiday flat is often kept for a decade or more before it changes hands.

The consequence for you is straightforward. New build is where the choice is, and where the specification is modern. Resale is where the negotiation is, where the price floor lives, and where the established neighbourhoods are.

The three towns where resale still competes

Torrevieja is the exception that proves the rule: 125 new build and 125 resale, an exact split across 250 listings, with a town median of €260,000. It is the only place on our book where you can genuinely compare the two side by side within the same streets.

Orihuela Costa is the one place resale actually wins: 29 resale against 19 new build across 48 listings, town median €297,000. Ciudad Quesada is the other, at 10 resale against 9 new build, though on a small book of 19 listings and a much higher €529,000 median.

Everywhere else the balance tips hard the other way. Twelve of the Costa Blanca towns we cover currently have no resale listing of any type: Calpe, Villajoyosa, Benidorm, Polop, Altea, Benissa, Jávea, Benijófar, Hondón de las Nieves, Cox, Catral and Rafal.

What the tax difference actually is

This is the one hard cost difference between the two routes, and it is worth getting right before you compare asking prices. In the Valencia region a resale purchase pays transfer tax (ITP) at 10 per cent of the declared price. A new build bought from the developer pays VAT (IVA) at 10 per cent plus stamp duty (AJD) at 1.5 per cent.

On a €250,000 apartment that is €25,000 on the resale route and €28,750 on the new-build route – a €3,750 gap. Notary, registry and legal fees sit on top of both and are broadly similar. It is not a large enough difference to decide the question on its own, but it is large enough that you should not budget 10 per cent flat and be surprised at completion.

The timing differs too. New build is paid in stages against construction milestones, with the balance at completion; resale is deposit then completion, usually inside two or three months. If your money is coming from a property sale in another country, that difference in timing matters more than the tax does.

What new build actually buys you

Specification, and a lot of it. Across the live book, 1,537 listings carry air conditioning, 1,237 have built-in wardrobes, 1,142 have a lift, and 349 have video intercom. The tags that are almost exclusively new build tell the story better: 222 listings have underfloor heating, 222 have porcelain tile flooring, 226 have a communal gym and 339 come with two parking spaces.

You also get a ten-year structural guarantee, a modern energy rating, and nothing to fix for a decade. Against that: you are buying from a plan, you cannot see the light in the actual room, and the finish date can move. We only take on developments where we can show clients a completed phase or an equivalent build by the same developer.

What resale actually buys you

Position and price. Resale is why the book has a floor at all: 46 listings under €150,000, of which 41 are in Torrevieja, with the town's entry price at €89,900. There is essentially no new build at that level anywhere on the coast.

Resale also puts you in the streets that already work – the ones with the bakery, the bus stop and the neighbours who have lived there twenty years. New developments are frequently on the edge of a town, and the amenities arrive on the developer's schedule, not yours.

The cost is condition. 359 listings on our book carry an energy rating of G, the lowest band. Older Spanish stock was built for summer and not for February, and single glazing, no insulation and electric heaters make a real difference to what a winter costs you. Only 255 listings across the whole book are tagged with double glazing. Budget for the retrofit before you make the offer, not after.

Which one you should buy

If your budget is under €200,000, the question answers itself: you are buying resale, and you are most likely buying in Torrevieja. Of the 46 listings on our book below €150,000, 41 sit in that one town.

If your budget is €250,000 or more and you want a place that needs nothing doing to it, new build is where the supply is, and refusing it on principle will leave you looking at a handful of properties instead of hundreds. Browse the whole pipeline at new-build properties on the Costa Blanca, or the local stock at new build in Torrevieja.

If you want to compare both honestly in the same town, Torrevieja is the only place you can. Everywhere else the choice has already been made for you by what is available. Our apartments for sale on the Costa Blanca page holds both routes side by side.

Tell us your budget and your completion timing below. If your timeline is short, we will point you at resale even where our new-build book is deeper – a development finishing in eighteen months is no use to somebody who needs keys in March.