Housing Becomes a Decision: Family from Binissalem Moves to the Mainland

When rent determines life

In September of this year, Sebastián, his wife Claudia, and their two children faced a tough choice: stay and save or pack up and go. In Binissalem, a place with vineyards, small cafés, and Sunday markets, finding a home for the four-person family had become a test of patience. Apartments that used to be considered “cozy” now cost twice as much or run at nearly €1,000 per month – for many households simply unaffordable.

They decided to move to the mainland and relocated to Castellón. Not out of a sense of adventure, says Sebastián, but because there is room to breathe again there: A row house with four bedrooms, a garden and a garage costs the family there around €400 per month. Suddenly there is space again for small things: a dining table where homework happens, instead of a living room that serves only as a sleeping alcove.

No farewell, more of an escape hatch

The move has practical reasons: Claudia's new job in the human resources department of a construction company, the proximity to the grandparents, and schools that don't make the children commute for hours. Sebastián, formerly working in a sorting facility and now retired, would rather talk about the small joys – the wood stove in the living room, the scent of pa amb oli in the garden – than about acute feelings of loss.

Nevertheless, there is lingering melancholy. When the family returns for a few days, they sleep in the motorhome “Posidonia” on a parking lot in Binissalem. It has everything essential on board: kitchen, shower, solar panels. Still it hurts when they don't get a ferry discount – because the island resident discount exists only if you are officially registered there.

More than a personal story

What sounds here like a solitary fate is part of a pattern: rising real estate prices, holiday rentals, and demand from outsiders are changing the villages. Many neighbors, says Sebastián, have similar plans or have already left. He documents it, posts videos and reports on changes: less Mallorcan in the streets, more foreign languages in the shops, different opening hours, different rhythms of life.

The debate about affordable housing touches not only individual families. It concerns us as a community: who stays in the villages, who can still afford life, and who bears responsibility for affordable housing? Answers to these questions are political as well as local, difficult and urgent.

For Sebastián and his family at the moment: they have built something new and are glad about the relief in their wallets. Whether they stay away permanently, they don't know. “In our hearts we are Mallorcans”, he says. And that sounds as if they would come back – if circumstances permit.