Viewing property in winter: what you see that summer hides

Why winter is a good test

Mallorca has a Mediterranean climate: hot, dry summers and mild but relatively wet winters. Most buyers first see the island in summer, when every terrace looks good and every window is open. If you are going to live in a house all year, or even spend Christmas and Easter in it, the colder months tell you more. The sun is lower, the air is damper, the resorts are quieter and the roads are tested by rain.

None of this is a reason to avoid a property. It is a reason to see it at least once between November and March before you commit, or to ask the right questions if you can’t.

Damp: use your nose as well as your eyes

Many older Mallorcan houses are built of stone, and much of it is marès, a soft, porous sandstone-like rock that has been used on the island for centuries, from Palma Cathedral to village houses. Porous stone takes up water from the ground and holds it, so ground-floor walls in old houses are often damp in winter. A house shut up for months, with no heating and the shutters closed, shows it quickly.

• A musty smell as you walk in, before anyone opens the windows.
• Tide marks, flaking paint or white salty deposits on the lower part of walls.
• Black mould in corners, behind wardrobes and on the inside of north-facing walls.
• Fresh paint in just one area, which can hide a problem.
• Running dehumidifiers. Ask how often they are used, and why.

Damp is common and often manageable, but it needs a proper diagnosis. A building surveyor can tell you whether it comes from the ground, the roof, a leaking pipe or simple condensation. Our guide to surveys and checks explains who to hire and what they look at.

Heating: what is there, and does it work

Summer viewings rarely include a question about heating. In winter you feel the answer. Thick stone walls keep a house cool in July but can make it cold and slow to warm in January, and many older homes were built with little or no insulation. Spain’s first national rules on thermal insulation in buildings only date from 1979.

• What heats the house: radiators, underfloor heating, a heat pump, air conditioning units that also heat, a wood or pellet stove, or nothing at all?
• What fuel does it run on, and where is it stored? Piped natural gas reaches Palma and a number of other towns, but not everywhere, and many houses use bottled gas, a tank or heating oil.
• Can you see the heating running during the viewing, and do all the rooms warm up?
• What does the energy performance certificate say? Every home offered for sale must have one, and the rating must be shown in adverts.

Asking for recent winter energy bills is a fair request and tells you more than any brochure.

Light and the low winter sun

In December the sun stays low in the southern sky. A south-facing terrace that is too hot in summer can be the best room in the house in winter, while a north-facing house, or one in a narrow street, may get no direct sun for weeks. In the mountains, valleys and north-facing slopes lose the sun early in the afternoon, and the Serra de Tramuntana is colder and wetter than the rest of the island. Visit at the time of day you would use the main rooms, and check where the shadows of hills, pine trees and neighbouring buildings fall.

Resorts in the off season

In many coastal resorts most hotels close for the winter, extra summer buses stop and whole streets of restaurants pull down their shutters. Towns with a large registered population, such as Port de Pollença, keep supermarkets, schools and a GP surgery going all year, but the atmosphere changes. Smaller resorts can feel almost empty. If you are thinking of a flat in a building used mainly for holidays, a winter visit shows how many neighbours are actually there, and whether the nearest shop is open.

Roads, torrents and heavy rain

Mallorca’s wettest months are October and November, and autumn storms can be intense. Many dry riverbeds, called torrents, only carry water after heavy rain, and then they can rise fast. In October 2018 a flash flood in Sant Llorenç des Cardassar killed 13 people. Flood zones are mapped, and a lawyer or surveyor can check whether a plot lies in one.

Rain also tests access. Unpaved tracks to country houses can turn to mud or wash out, and mountain roads are occasionally closed by rockfalls or, more rarely, snow, as happened on several Tramuntana roads after the storm of late February 2023. Drive the route yourself after rain if you can, and ask the neighbours who maintains the track.

A short winter viewing checklist

• Arrive before the owner has aired the house, and notice the smell.
• Touch the lower walls and look behind furniture.
• Ask to see the heating on and ask for winter bills.
• Note which rooms get sun, and when.
• Check what is open nearby on a weekday in January.
• Drive the access road in the rain, or soon after.

For the wider process of viewing, offering and checking a property, see the buying process.