Most property portals in Spain will tell you a development has "excellent rental potential." None of them will tell you the actual number.
We will.
How we know this model works
Before Avena was public, it wasn't sitting idle. We used it ourselves. Four properties — two villas and two apartments on Spain's southern coast — bought using the same scoring engine that's now running on 1,867 listings. Every single acquisition went through the model first. Price per m², yield projection, location score, developer risk. If it didn't pass the filter, we didn't buy.
The results speak for themselves. Which is exactly why we decided to stop keeping it internal.
We used to joke that if we had unlimited capital we'd just let the algorithm run and collect the returns. The engine doesn't have opinions. It doesn't have a development to push. It just reads the data.
That's exactly why we decided to make it public.
What rental yield actually means
Gross yield is simple. Annual rental income divided by purchase price. A €250k property renting for €18,750 a year is a 7.5% gross yield.
Net yield is what you actually take home. Subtract community fees, property tax (IBI), insurance, maintenance, management fees (typically 20–25% of rental income) and mortgage interest if leveraged. On a well-run property in a strong rental location you're looking at net yields of 4.5–6%. On a poorly chosen one you're looking at 2–3% and wondering why you bothered.
The difference between those two outcomes is almost entirely location and price paid. Not luck.
What the data shows across the costas
We ran the numbers across all 1,867 properties in the current dataset. Here's the honest picture.
Costa Blanca South consistently produces the strongest yield figures. Torrevieja leads — average gross yield on new builds in the €180k–€280k range sits between 6.8% and 8.4% depending on proximity to the coast and property type. The rental market is liquid. Occupancy from June to September is high. Shoulder season is growing as northern European remote workers discover the area.
Mar Menor comes in close behind. Longer effective season due to the lagoon microclimate, lower entry prices, and a rental market that's still slightly undersupplied relative to demand. Properties here are flagging as the best risk-adjusted yields in the dataset.
Costa del Sol mid-range — Fuengirola, Benalmádena, eastern Estepona — is producing 5–6.5% gross on sensibly priced new builds. Not the top of the table but solid, with stronger capital appreciation potential pulling the total return up.
Prime Marbella and the luxury segment is a different calculation entirely. Yields compress to 3.5–5% gross but weekly rental rates can be extraordinary in peak season. A €900k villa near Puerto Banús renting at €5,000 a week in July and August makes the yield math look weak on paper while generating serious cash in practice.
The weeks that matter
Spain's rental calendar is brutal in its concentration. July and August are everything in most coastal markets. A property that sits empty in November isn't a problem — it's expected. What separates a 5% yield from a 7.5% yield is usually shoulder season occupancy: May, June, September, October.
The locations that hold occupancy through shoulder season — Mar Menor, Torrevieja, Jávea in the north — consistently outperform on yield over a full year. This is exactly what the model weights.
Why this hasn't been available before
Most property investment decisions in Spain are still made on instinct, on agent relationships, on "I visited and liked it." The data infrastructure to score properties objectively simply didn't exist for retail investors.
It existed for institutions. Not for the individual buyer putting €250k of savings into a Costa Blanca apartment and hoping for the best.
That gap is what we built Avena to close. The same engine we used internally — the one that kept flagging opportunities before the market caught up — is now running on 1,867 properties and updating continuously.
If it sounds like we're confident in it: we are. We've seen what it finds when there's nobody else looking.
See the current highest-yielding properties in Spain →
Ranked by gross yield, net yield and investment score. Free to browse. Full analysis from €79/month.
— Henrik, Avena team