Interest in the coastal Spanish town is booming, thanks to the rise of remote work, the area’s LGBTQ-friendly atmosphere and its proximity to Barcelona
6 min
In their post pandemic search for a European second home, Florida’s Martin and Patricia Tantow had a lot of boxes to tick.
The couple, who confined their search to the mainland Mediterranean coast, wanted sea views, walkable beach and town access, and a unit that was easy to renovate—or, as they call it, a “liveable fixer-upper.”
They found what they were looking for in Sitges, a Spanish resort town that had been under the radar for U.S. buyers and vacationers.
Sitges, with around 30,000 year-round residents, is known for its sandy beaches, 19th-century villas, 21st-century mansions, quaint historic centre and thriving residential real-estate market. Only a 25-minute drive from Barcelona’s international airport, the community is one of three select resorts that compete for the title of mainland Spain’s most expensive.
Home prices in Sitges average $457 per square foot, up 7.3% in the past year and 21% in the past five years, according to Idealista, a Spanish real estate website. Jesús Encinar, CEO and chairman of Idealista, says that Cadaqués, up the Catalan coast from Sitges and near France, is now at the top, with average prices in March reaching $575 per square foot. Málaga in the south of Spain is now at $458 per square foot, edging past Sitges.
Of the three, Sitges is the most convenient for trans-Atlantic air connections—and, local homeowners say, year-round charm. Smaller and less glitzy than Marbella, Sitges has temperate winters and hot summers, and it’s bigger and more accessible than remote whitewashed Cadaqués, where life dies down in the chillier offseason.
The Tantows paid 1.3 million euros (about $1.39 million) in July 2023 for a compact 2,300-square-foot Sitges home on a steep 1/5th-acre lot, offering prized southern exposures and expansive sea views. They plan to divide their time about equally between their primary Sarasota, Fla., home and Spain, where they can work remotely.
Able to live in the 1990s property while wrapping up the renovation, the couple has spent about $270,000 on refurbishments, and they plan to spend around $50,000 more on the four-bedroom home before they’re done.
“We painted inside and outside, and we opened things up a bit by breaking down some walls,” says Patricia Tantow, a marketing executive at an IT company. Other structural improvements included new solar panels, energy-efficient doors and windows, and insulation upgrades. They also decided to convert a lower-level gym into a home office and gaming area.
The couple, both 50, view the investment as a vacation home for now and a potential retirement home later. Patricia Tantow still seems a bit surprised at where they ended up.
“My dream was to buy in the south of France,” she recalls. “But then I came to Sitges and there was something special here. It’s very cute, but very diverse as well—you feel like you belong here. So I changed my mind about France and said, ‘Let’s try to make this happen.’”
Long popular with the LGBTQ community, Sitges traditionally attracts second-home buyers from Northern Europe, as well as elsewhere in Spain. Now the number of American buyers is rising, says the Tantows’ agency, Lucas Fox, where in-house sales to Americans doubled in 2023 compared with the year before. The rise of remote work and LGBTQ word-of-mouth are each helping to fuel interest, says the agency.
American visitors to the town are also increasing. Marina Norwell, of Oliver’s Travels, the U.K.-based villa-rental specialists, says inquiries from the U.S. quadrupled in 2023 from the year before.
Norwell says a top choice for villa-minded Americans is a 10-bedroom country house with a saltwater swimming pool, about 15 minutes from the centre of Sitges, with a high-season weekly rate of about $18,500. Norwell says it’s popular with larger groups.
Sitges is something of a paradox, say residents. Known for its freewheeling nightlife in high season, it becomes a quieter, family-friendly community the rest of the year. The Tantows, who relocated during the pandemic from San Francisco to Florida, said they have no qualms about letting their two children, 9 and 11, explore on their own—something they couldn’t imagine back in San Francisco.
A desirable setting to raise children was also on the minds of full-time Dutch residents Ben Aquina and his wife, Carmen Aquina. The couple moved to Sitges in 2015 from the Netherlands to give their two sons, then 12 and 13, an international experience, he says.
The family rented for two years “to make sure that everything would go well with the kids,” says Aquina, a 63-year-old retired businessman. Then he and his wife, now 57, paid about $2.8 million in 2017 for a 7,000-square-foot, four-bedroom house on a ½-acre lot in a gated community near the city’s premier golf course, Club de Golf Terramar.
They spent more than $3 million on a gut renovation of the three-level property, originally built in 2004, adding everything from a new kitchen and upstairs terrace to a new outdoor pool.
“We love Sitges,” says Ben Aquina. “Life is so nice; the climate is perfect.”
Now that their sons are attending universities in Amsterdam and Rotterdam, the couple has listed the home for $5.79 million, with Rachel Haslam of Lucas Fox handling the sale. They plan to downsize locally to an apartment, as well as spend more time back in Holland.
At their current asking price, the Aquinas would just about break even, but many Sitges lovers are willing to take a loss, says Jordi Carbonell, sales director for Barcelona’s surrounding areas at Engel & Völkers Spain.
Catalonia led the way in the industrialisation of Spain in the 19th century, and Sitges became a spot for Catalan magnates to build lavish summer villas, often in a style associated with architect Antoni Gaudí up the coast in Barcelona. Still expensive to buy, and often very expensive to modernize, they typically need a new kitchen and new air-conditioning system, and even a new roof, requiring a total investment of almost $10 million to $11 million, says Carbonell. New owners may never resell for that price, he adds, “but some people just love these properties.”
Carbonell says the highest square-foot prices can now be found on Passeig Maritim, the palm-lined boulevard bordering the beach. In 2023, Lucas Fox sold a 1,930-square-foot contemporary apartment on the boulevard’s continuation, Passeig de la Ribera, for $1.6 million, or $831 per square foot, far exceeding the resort’s average.
Both the Tantows and the Aquinas were drawn to the community’s proximity to Barcelona—“Sitges wouldn’t be Sitges without Barcelona,” says venture capitalist Martin Tantow, who says the family relies on direct flights from Miami and California. But they also use it as a getaway to the nearby Penedès wine region, home to Catalonia’s sparkling Cava wines.
Carbonell says Sitges-bound buyers who want more land often head up to Penedès, where luxury properties can come with stables and tennis courts. Meanwhile, budget-minded international buyers who want access to Sitges but more space for their euro are increasingly heading a 15-minute drive away to nearby communities, Sant Pere de Ribes, closer to the vineyards, and Vilanova i la Geltrú, a small city down the coast, where “you can spend 450,000 euros on a home but still enjoy Sitges on the weekends,” he says.
Mary Anne Gibbons and Michael Healy, a couple in their early 70s from Washington, D.C., recently capped off an Iberian holiday with a first-time visit to Sitges, opting for an Oliver’s Travels villa near Sant Pere de Ribes, where they paid around $1,400 in total for four nights in a three-bedroom renovated stone house.
Intending to use the setting as a base for discovering Barcelona, Gibbons says they opted most days to hang out in Sitges instead.
“It’s a really cute town with a very relaxed atmosphere,” says the attorney, who enjoyed the seafront promenade and quaint shops and cafes. “Very chill.”
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What a quarter-million dollars gets you in the western capital.
Alexandre de Betak and his wife are focusing on their most personal project yet.
Unmarried home buyers say they are giving priority to a financial foundation over a legal one
4 min
The big wedding can wait. Couples are deciding they would rather take the plunge into homeownership.
In reshuffling the traditional order of adult milestones, some couples may decide not to marry at all, while others say they are willing to delay a wedding. Buying a home is as much, if not more of a commitment, they reason. It helps them build financial stability when the housing market is historically unaffordable.
In 2023, about 555,000 unmarried couples said that they had bought their home in the previous year, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of Census Bureau data. That is up 46% from 10 years earlier, when just under 381,000 couples did the same.
Unmarried couples amounted to more than 11% of all U.S. home sales. The percentage has climbed steadily over the past two decades—a period in which marriage rates have fallen. These couples make up triple the share of the housing market that they did in the mid-1980s, according to the National Association of Realtors.
To make it work, couples must look past the significant risk that the relationship could blow up, or something could happen to one partner. Without a marriage certificate, living situations and finances are more likely to fall into limbo, attorneys say.
Mark White, 59 years old, and Sheila Davidson, 62, bought a lakeside townhouse together in Newport News, Va., in 2021. But only her name is on the deed. He sometimes worries about what would happen to the house if something happened to her. They have told their children that he should inherit the property, but don’t have formal documentation.
“We need to get him on the deed at some point,” Davidson said.
White and Davidson both had previous marriages, and decided they don’t want to do it again. They also believe tying the knot would affect their retirement benefits and tax brackets.
Couples that forgo or postpone marriage say they are giving priority to a financial foundation over a legal one. The median homeowner had nearly $400,000 in wealth in 2022, compared with roughly $10,000 for renters, according to the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances.
Even couples that get married first are often focused on the house. Many engaged couples ask for down-payment help in lieu of traditional wedding gifts.
“A mortgage feels like a more concrete step toward their future together than a wedding,” said Emily Luk, co-founder of Plenty, a financial website for couples.
Elise Dixon and Nick Blue, both 29, watched last year as the Fed lifted rates, ostensibly pushing up the monthly costs on a mortgage. The couple, together for four years, decided to use $80,000 of their combined savings, including an unexpected inheritance she received from her grandfather, to buy a split-level condo in Washington, D.C.
“Buying a house is actually a bigger commitment than an engagement,” Dixon said.
They did that, too, getting engaged eight months after their April 2023 closing date. They are planning a small ceremony on the Maryland waterfront next year with around 75 guests, which they expect to cost less than they spent on the home’s down payment and closing costs.
The ages at which people buy homes and enter marriages have both been trending upward. The median age of first marriage for men is 30.2, and for women, 28.6, according to the Census Bureau. That is up from 29.3 and 27.0 a decade earlier. The National Association of Realtors reported this year that the median age of first-time buyers was 38, up from 31 in 2014.
Family lawyers—and parents—sometimes suggest protections in case the unmarried couple breaks up. A prenup-like cohabitation agreement spells out who keeps the house, and how to divide the financial obligations. Without the divorce process, a split can be even messier, legal advisers say.
Family law attorneys say more unmarried people are calling for legal advice, but often balk at planning for a potential split, along with the cost of drawing up such agreements, which can range from $1,000 to $3,000, according to attorney-matching service Legal Match.
Dixon, the Washington condo buyer, said she brushed off her mother’s suggestion that she draft an agreement with Blue detailing how much she invested, figuring that their mutual trust and equal contributions made it unnecessary. (They are planning to get a prenup when they wed, she said.)
There are a lot of questions couples don’t often think about, such as whether one owner has the option to buy the other out, and how quickly they need to identify a real-estate agent if they decide to sell, said Ryan Malet, a real-estate lawyer in the D.C. region.
The legal risks often don’t deter young home buyers.
Peyton Kolb, 26, and her fiancé figured that a 150-person wedding would cost $200,000 or more. Instead, they bought a three-bedroom near Tampa with a down payment of less than $50,000.
“We could spend it all on one day, or we could invest in something that would build equity and give us space to grow,” said Kolb, who works in new-home sales.
Owning a place where guests could sleep in an extra bedroom, instead of on the couch in their old rental, “really solidified us starting our lives together,” Kolb said. Their wedding is set for next May.
Homes and weddings have both gotten more expensive, but there are signs that home prices are rising faster. From 2019 to 2023, the median sales price for existing single-family homes rose by 44%, according to the National Association of Realtors. The average cost of a wedding increased 25% over that time, according to annual survey data from The Knot.
Roughly three quarters of couples move in together before marriage, and may already be considering the trade-offs between buying and renting. The cost of both has risen sharply over the past few years, but rent rises regularly while buying with a fixed-rate mortgage caps at least some of the costs.
An $800 rent hike prompted Sonali Prabhu and Ryan Willis, both 27, to look at buying. They were already paying $3,200 in monthly rent on their two-bedroom Austin, Texas, apartment, and felt they had outgrown it while working from home.
In October, they closed on a $425,000 three-bed, three-bath house. Their mortgage payment is $200 more than their rent would have been, but they have more space. They split the down payment and she paid about $50,000 for some renovations.
Her dad’s one request was that the house face east for good fortune, she said. Both parents are eagerly awaiting an engagement.
“We’re very solid right now,” said Prabhu, who plans to get married in 2026. “The marriage will come when it comes.”
