Why Galicia?

While investors scramble over each other in Marbella, Barcelona, and Valencia — bidding up already eye-watering prices in markets that feel increasingly saturated — a different kind of opportunity is quietly taking shape in the green, granite-edged northwest corner of Spain.

Galicia. And if you haven't been paying attention, you should be.

The Numbers Don't Lie

Let's start with the data, because it makes the case better than any sales pitch.

As of 2025–2026, average property prices across Galicia sit at around €1,958–€2,000 per square metre. That figure already looks compelling when set against the national Spanish average of €2,517/m². But it becomes genuinely striking when you compare it to the markets that have dominated international investor conversation for the past decade:

What those numbers mean in practice is this: the budget that buys you a 60–70m² apartment in Marbella — a two-bed, perhaps a terrace, no view — could buy you a 150m² coastal villa in Galicia with a garden and a sea outlook. You're not trading down in quality of life. You're trading up in space, character, and return on capital.

In rural and inland areas of the region, prices drop further still — to as low as €800–€1,200/m² — where stone farmhouses and Galician pazos (manor houses of extraordinary architectural character) can be acquired for figures that would seem implausible to anyone who has spent the last few years watching the Costa del Sol's relentless march upward.

And critically, Galicia's market is moving. Prices rose approximately 5% in nominal terms from January 2025 to January 2026 — the momentum is genuine and broad-based — yet the region remains at the early stage of international discovery.

The Connectivity Piece That Changes Everything

One of the most persistent misconceptions about Galicia is that it's remote. It isn't.

Santiago de Compostela sits on Spain's high-speed AVE rail network, connecting it to Madrid in just over three hours on the fastest service — and to the broader national infrastructure beyond. Vigo and A Coruña are similarly well served, making Galicia more accessible by rail than many locations that command far higher property premiums.

On the aviation side, the picture has just become considerably more interesting. As of May 2026, United Airlines launched direct flights from Newark (New Jersey) to Santiago de Compostela, operating three times a week — Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. This is not a minor footnote. Direct transatlantic connectivity is one of the clearest signals that a market is transitioning from regional discovery to genuine international appeal. American capital follows American airlines.

The precedent is well established elsewhere in Europe. Wherever direct US air links arrive, international buyer interest accelerates. Galicia now has that link.

The Kind of People Who Choose to Live There

When the world's wealthiest individuals plant a flag somewhere, it tends not to be an accident.

Amancio Ortega — founder of Zara and the Inditex empire, and consistently ranked among the richest people in Europe — has lived in A Coruña his entire adult life. Despite a net worth that would comfortably fund a dozen Monaco penthouses, he famously chooses to live in a flat overlooking the A Coruña harbour. He built the world's most valuable fashion company in Galicia. He never left. His daughter, Sandra Ortega Mera, Spain's second wealthiest individual, was born and raised there and remains rooted in the region.

That's not nostalgia. That's a considered choice about where to live well.

Then there is Richard Gere, who has publicly and repeatedly called Galicia a "paradise." His wife, Alejandra Silva, was born in A Coruña, and the couple recently purchased Casa Cervigón — a 1920s Galician Modernist landmark on the seafront at Bastiagueiro beach — for approximately €10 million. In interviews, Gere has spoken warmly about the region's greenery, its sense of calm, and its difference from the crowded glamour of Spain's southern coasts: "It's a very beautiful place, very different from the south. It looks like the place where I grew up — there are many trees, it's very green, I love it."

The actor and activist Martin Sheen has also spoken of his deep connection to the region, rooted in his family's Galician heritage.

These are not property speculators chasing a trend. They are people of significant means choosing Galicia as the place they want to actually be.

The Camino Effect

Every year, more than 530,000 pilgrims walk the Camino de Santiago from across the globe, converging on Santiago de Compostela in one of the world's oldest and most enduring pilgrimage traditions — a new record set in 2025. The Camino Francés alone drew over 242,000 of them. They come from the United States, South Korea, Australia, Brazil, Germany, and everywhere between. Many of them encounter Galicia for the first time — its medieval stone villages, its Romanesque chapels, its extraordinary food, its rhythms — and they do not forget it.

The Camino is not just a cultural phenomenon. It is one of the most effective pieces of regional marketing in the world, entirely organic, entirely authentic, and running for over a thousand years. It introduces hundreds of thousands of international visitors annually to a region they may never otherwise have considered. Many return. Some stay.

1,500 Kilometres of Unspoilt Coastline

Galicia's coastline stretches for approximately 1,500 kilometres, shaped by the dramatic ría system — deep estuaries that push far inland, creating sheltered natural harbours and a landscape that is genuinely unlike anywhere else in Spain. The Rías Baixas in the south of the region and the wilder Rías Altas of the north offer beaches, clifftops, fishing villages, and island archipelagos that remain largely untouched by the mass tourism infrastructure that has transformed stretches of the Andalusian and Valencian coasts.

This is not underdevelopment. This is preservation. And in a European market where unspoilt coastal land is becoming vanishingly rare, that is an asset of genuine long-term value.

What Abis Brings to the Table

The opportunity in Galicia is real. Capitalising on it, however, requires the right access and the right expertise — and that is precisely where we operate.

At Abis, we have cultivated relationships across Galicia that give us access to off-market properties that never appear on Idealista, Rightmove, or any international portal. These are not distress sales or overlooked listings. They are properties held by families, estates, and private sellers who will transact only through trusted intermediaries — the kind of opportunities that simply do not exist in mature, saturated markets where every asset has already been discovered, packaged, and repriced for international buyers.

We also have direct access to a network of master craftsmen — specialists in Galician stonework, traditional carpentry, heritage restoration, and contemporary conversion — whose capabilities are extraordinary and whose costs remain a fraction of equivalent labour on the Costa del Sol. For investors looking to add value through renovation or repositioning, this is a significant structural advantage. The raw material of a Galician pazo or a coastal stone villa, combined with exceptional craft execution, produces results that the premium markets simply cannot match for the investment required.

The Honest Summary

If you are an investor who understands the value of buying quality ahead of the crowd, who recognises that direct transatlantic air links and the world's wealthiest residents living quietly in a region are signals rather than coincidences, and who wants to know what €500,000 buys in a market that is beautiful, unspoilt, and undervalued — then Galicia deserves serious attention.

We'd be glad to show you what we're seeing off-market.