Cape Verde Real Estate Index

How asking prices differ across Cape Verde's islands, and how to read the live Cape Verde Real Estate Index figures. Based on monitored asking-price listings — not transaction prices or valuations.

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29 April 2026 · 5 min read

Cape Verde property prices by island: how to read the index, island by island

Market Islands Data

Last updated: April 2026. Figures are read live from the index — see the market data page.

Cape Verde is not one property market. It is an archipelago of distinct island markets, each shaped by different levels of foreign demand, tourism infrastructure, and listing activity. A single archipelago-wide average tells you almost nothing.

This guide explains how to read the index island by island. We deliberately do not freeze price figures into this article: asking prices and tracked counts change as listings come and go, so a number printed here would quickly be wrong. The current, reproducible figures live on the market data page, which is generated from the index's current records.

Based on monitored asking-price listings. Not transaction prices or valuations. The index aggregates publicly listed asking prices — not closing prices, not the full market, and not independently verified. The live /listings and /market pages are always the authoritative source.[1]

How the islands differ

A handful of islands carry enough tracked listings for a meaningful median asking price; the rest are too thin to summarise with a single number. What shapes each island's figure:

  • Sal — the deepest tracked sample. Direct international flights and the Santa Maria resort cluster anchor most of the foreign-buyer activity visible on the index. Inventory skews toward apartments and resort units.
  • Santiago — a large sample, but weighted toward Praia city stock rather than resort apartments. A different median here reflects different inventory, not simply a "more expensive island."
  • Boa Vista — weighted toward resort apartments and off-plan stock around Sal Rei. The split between new-build and resale asking prices is not something the index can compare without transaction evidence.
  • São Vicente — a growing sample centred on Mindelo, urban and residential rather than resort — a different buyer profile to Sal and Boa Vista.

For the current median asking price and tracked count per island, open the market data page and the per-island grids: Sal, Santiago, Boa Vista, São Vicente.[2]

The islands with too little tracked data to price

Several islands appear in the index but have samples too thin to support a reliable median. That may reflect genuinely thin local activity, or simply that the index has not yet onboarded the sources where listings on those islands tend to surface. Maio, São Nicolau, Fogo, Santo Antão, and Brava all fall into this category at present — the live market page suppresses a median where the sample is too small rather than publishing a misleading number.

If you are specifically researching one of these islands, the most useful step is to look at the individual tracked listings on /listings and follow the source links rather than rely on an aggregate. Coverage on these islands may deepen as new sources are added.

What drives the differences

The variation between islands reflects a few structural factors that pre-date any individual listing:

  • Direct flight access. Sal and Boa Vista have international airports with direct European routes. That underwrites most of the foreign-buyer demand visible in the index.
  • Sample depth. Where many listings are tracked, a median is informative; where only a handful are, it is not — which is why thin-sample islands are suppressed rather than priced.
  • Inventory mix. Urban stock (Praia) versus resort and off-plan stock (Sal, Boa Vista) shapes each island's headline number more than location alone.
  • Connectivity gaps. Santo Antão (ferry only, from São Vicente) and Brava (no airport) sit upstream of any pricing question. Foreign-buyer activity is thinner there, and so is source coverage.

How the live figures are produced

The market data page computes each island's median from the priced, de-duplicated listings the index currently tracks: asking prices are normalised to euros at the official peg; price-on-request records stay in the listing count but are excluded from the median; near-duplicate records across sources are removed before counting; and islands with samples too thin to be meaningful are suppressed rather than published.[1] Because it reads current records, the figure you see is reproducible at the time you view it — and is a monitored asking-price median, not an AREI index value, a transaction price, or a valuation.

How to use this

Treat the live figures as a way to narrow a shortlist — not as a forecast, a valuation, or a substitute for going through individual listings, talking to an independent local lawyer, and checking the source page for any property you take seriously.

For the legal and tax mechanics of buying once you have shortlisted, see the step-by-step buying guide. For an island-by-island comparison framed around lifestyle and use case, see Which Cape Verde island. For methodology and source coverage, see /about.

Sources

  1. Cape Verde Real Estate Index — market data — AREI. live, authoritative median asking price and tracked inventory by island; generated from current records, not frozen into prose. AREI (AREI dataset; accessed 19 June 2026).
  2. Cape Verde Real Estate Index — live listings — AREI. monitored asking-price listings from tracked public sources; not transaction prices, valuations, or independently verified records. AREI (AREI dataset; accessed 19 June 2026).

The Cape Verde Real Estate Index is an independent property search and data platform, published by AREI — not a broker, agency, or marketplace. Listings are aggregated from publicly accessible sources we currently track and are not legally verified. Always confirm a property's details with the original agent or seller and your own lawyer before acting.