14 May 22, 2022The Sunday TimesHome
town. Puerto Pollensa’s
expats, she says, find “any
niche they can — running
watersports schools, hiring
out electric bikes — to be
useful. I work 14-hour days
in peak season, between
February and June, then train
in summer,” Quince says.
Brits come to work in
yachting, cycling, tourism or
the burgeoning film industry.
“Australia’s Love Island was
filmed here, in a house in
Pollensa. Many films use it
as a stand-in for the
Caribbean,” says Stuart
Jenkins, the head of Savills
estate agency in Mallorca.
Other expats are newly
remote workers. “The
pandemic has made them
realise they want to fulfil their
dream of living in Mallorca,”
says Lowri Millar, headteacher at the Mallorca
International School (MIS) in
Crestatx in the north of the
island, where 30 per cent of its
pupils are British.
Newcomers face stiff
competition and high prices.
Germans account for two
thirds of overseas buyers, but
Brits are second, at 9 per cent,
according to Engel & Völkers.
The estate agency reports that
in northern hotspots, such as
Pollensa and Alcudia, prices
rose by 15 to 20 per cent last
year. The entry level for villas
is about €1 million. “You can’t
buy much in the countryside
for less than that price, and if
you do find something there’s
a risk that it’s not legal — and
hence not mortgageable,”
warns Gary Hobson, the
managing director at Engel &
Völkers North Mallorca.The Spanish hotspot of Mallorca has become a
post-pandemic playground for Brits looking for
a better work/life balance, finds Zoe Dare Hall
BALEARIC
BLISS
I
f it’s a better work/life
balance you are looking
for, you will find it in
Mallorca. At the
weekends whippet-thin
cyclists pound up the island’s
mountains, while early-
morning dippers, leisurely
paddleboarders and
adrenaline-fuelled kitesurfers
fill its bustling bays.
Ottilie Quince, a 40-year-old
former teacher and Luton
Town FC physio, embodies the
island’s sporty spirit. She took
up cycling after a kidney
transplant in 2007, and a
decade later moved to Puerto
Pollensa, where she rents a
three-bedroom flat for €840
(£710) a month — and has
seven bikes in her living room.
Quince runs OQ Service
Course, one of a dozen bike
hire and repair shops in theGETTY IMAGES