Market research · 29 July 2026
What €100,000 Buys on Sal, Boa Vista and Santiago Right Now
A six-figure budget reaches dozens of monitored listings on Sal, a smaller but apartment-heavy selection on Boa Vista, and only three comparable listings on Santiago. The differences are as much about property mix and data coverage as price.
Published 5 Aug 2026 · Data as of 29 Jul 2026 · Published by AREI
Key takeaways
- The frozen snapshot contains 66 monitored Sal listings, 21 Boa Vista listings and three Santiago listings at or below €100,000.
- The budget cohorts represent 35.5% of priced residential inventory on Sal, 39.6% on Boa Vista and 2.7% on Santiago.
- The comparison describes monitored asking-price listings, not transactions or valuations.
Key market metrics
- Listings tracked
- 484
- Median asking price
- €158K
- Average €/m²
- €1,707
- Sources tracked
- 9
Island breakdown
| Island | Listings | Eligible | Median | Avg €/m² | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sal | 213 | 199 | €125K | €1,858 | 7 |
| Santiago | 139 | 115 | €227K | €1,611 | 3 |
| Boa Vista | 87 | 64 | €125K | €1,538 | 5 |
| Maio | 16 | 8 | €105K | — | 3 |
| São Vicente | 11 | 11 | €135K | €1,266 | 3 |
| São Nicolau | 9 | 0 | Withheld (n<5) | Withheld (n<5) | 1 |
| Fogo | 8 | 3 | Withheld (n<5) | Withheld (n<5) | 2 |
| Santo Antão | 1 | 1 | Withheld (n<5) | Withheld (n<5) | 1 |
Listing-based signal (asking prices), not transaction prices. Values are withheld for island samples below five eligible records.
Analysis
The same €100,000 ceiling opens three very different doors in Cape Verde. In AREI’s snapshot dated 29 July 2026, 66 monitored residential listings on Sal and 21 on Boa Vista were priced at or below that level. On Santiago, just three were.
That is not a verdict that one island is cheap and another expensive. Sal and Boa Vista’s sub-€100,000 inventory is dominated by apartments, studios and resort-oriented stock. Santiago’s monitored residential inventory contains a different mix and, within this budget, a sample too small for a defensible typical-price or price-per-square-metre conclusion.
Based on monitored asking-price listings. Not transaction prices or valuations.
The €100,000 snapshot
The comparison starts with active, published, canonical residential sale listings carrying a valid EUR asking price. Land, commercial property, generic records that could not safely be classified as residential, and price-on-request listings are outside the priced comparison.
| Island | Total priced residential listings | At or below €100,000 | Share within budget | Most common property type | Most common bedroom count | Floor-area sample | Median asking €/m² |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sal | 186 | 66 | 35.5% | Apartment (50 of 66) | 2 bedrooms (34 of 66) | 42 of 66 (63.6%) | €1,097 |
| Boa Vista | 53 | 21 | 39.6% | Apartment (19 of 21) | 1 bedroom (12 of 17 known) | 14 of 21 (66.7%) | €1,384 |
| Santiago | 111 | 3 | 2.7% | Apartment (3 of 3) | Insufficient sample | 3 of 3 | Insufficient comparable data |
The percentage denominator is each island’s validly priced residential inventory, not every listing observed. The €100,000 threshold is identical across all three islands.
Sal: the widest selection
Sal contains the largest monitored budget cohort: 66 listings, or 35.5% of its 186 priced residential listings. The median asking price inside the budget is €85,000, with listings ranging from €34,300 to €100,000.
Apartments account for 50 of those 66 listings. The rest are nine studios, five penthouses and two houses. Every budget listing carries bedroom information: nine are recorded as zero-bedroom studios, 23 as one-bedroom homes and 34 as two-bedroom homes.
Floor area is available for 42 listings. Within that covered sample, the median advertised floor area is 72.5 square metres and the median listing price per square metre is €1,097. Those figures do not describe all 66 properties: 24 lack usable floor area, and the cohort combines apartments, studios, penthouses and two houses. It is therefore better read as a description of the covered mix than as a clean island-wide space-price benchmark.
Boa Vista: fewer choices, mostly apartments
Boa Vista has 21 listings within the budget, representing 39.6% of its 53 priced residential listings. Its within-budget median asking price is €79,000, and the range runs from €38,000 to €99,400.
The property mix is even more concentrated than Sal’s: 19 apartments, one studio and one house. Bedroom data is present for 17 listings. Among those, 12 are one-bedroom homes, four have two bedrooms and one is a studio. Four listings have no normalized bedroom count, so “one bedroom” describes the known sample rather than every budget listing.
Fourteen listings have usable floor area. Their median is 62 square metres, and their median asking price per square metre is €1,384. Coverage is 66.7%, leaving seven listings outside the space comparison.
That higher €/m² figure alongside a lower median total asking price illustrates why “cheaper property” and “cheaper space” are not the same claim. A smaller apartment can cost less in total while carrying a higher asking price for each square metre.
Santiago: a count, not a market benchmark
Only three of Santiago’s 111 validly priced residential listings sit at or below €100,000, a share of 2.7%. All three are apartments, with asking prices between €70,500 and €95,222. Two are recorded as one-bedroom units and one as a two-bedroom unit.
Three observations are enough to report an inventory count, but not enough to publish a typical price, rank Santiago against the other islands, or draw a price-per-square-metre conclusion. For that reason, the table suppresses those cells rather than dressing a very small sample as a market result.
This is also a monitored-source result. It may reflect where AREI has coverage, which Santiago properties are marketed online, and which listings carry usable structured prices. It does not mean that only three homes can be bought on the island for €100,000.
What the same budget actually means
On Sal, €100,000 reaches a relatively broad apartment-led inventory, including a substantial number of two-bedroom listings. On Boa Vista, it reaches a smaller selection weighted heavily toward one-bedroom apartments. On Santiago, the current monitored sample is too thin to define a normal budget property.
The distinction matters:
- Cheaper property refers to a lower total asking price.
- Cheaper space refers to a lower asking price per square metre.
- Smaller units can reduce the total ticket without reducing €/m².
- Property mix changes a median when studios, apartments, penthouses and houses are pooled.
- Location mix matters even within an island; a beachfront or resort-linked unit is not automatically comparable with an urban apartment elsewhere.
The data supports a budget-reach comparison. It does not support a simple “cheapest island” ranking.
Missing data changes the view
Before the budget filter, 11 otherwise residential Sal listings lacked a valid asking price, as did 13 on Boa Vista and 21 on Santiago. Relative to all safely classified residential listings on each island, that is a missing-price rate of 5.6% on Sal, 19.7% on Boa Vista and 15.9% on Santiago.
Floor area is the more important limitation once a listing enters the budget comparison. The usable-area rate is 63.6% on Sal and 66.7% on Boa Vista. The resulting €/m² figures are publishable as covered-sample descriptions because each has at least 10 observations and the coverage is explicit. They should not be treated as complete island benchmarks.
What the data cannot tell us
These are asking prices, not completed transaction prices. The snapshot does not show negotiation, final consideration, legal condition, fit-out quality, service charges or the cost of repairs. It also does not consistently classify new-build versus resale, standard residential versus tourism residential, or condition.
The public feed contains canonical curated rows, but AREI’s methodology notes that residual cross-source near-duplicates may remain. Published lifecycle status is used as the operational definition of active; this editorial snapshot did not revisit every source page independently.
Methodology
- Data as of: 29 July 2026 at 23:42:25 UTC.
- Snapshot: 29 July 2026, 23:42 UTC.
- Population: Active, published, canonical residential sale listings in AREI’s monitored Cape Verde listing feed.
- Price rule: EUR asking price from €10,000 to €5 million; no currency conversion was performed because every exposed listing was already normalized to EUR.
- Residential types: apartment, duplex, house, penthouse, studio, townhouse and villa.
- Suppression rule: No segment median is used as a headline with fewer than 10 valid observations.
- Calculation: Decimal values are frozen in the snapshot; monetary aggregation is performed with decimal-safe integer/rational logic.
Sources
- AREI Cape Verde listing snapshot, 29 July 2026.
- Snapshot: 29 July 2026, 23:42 UTC.
- Disclosure: Based on monitored asking-price listings. Not transaction prices or valuations.
Conclusion
At €100,000, the monitored snapshot contains a broad selection on Sal, a smaller apartment-led choice on Boa Vista, and too little comparable Santiago inventory for a confident generalization. The useful conclusion is not that one island is simply cheaper. It is that the same nominal budget reaches different unit sizes, bedroom mixes and property types — and that any serious comparison has to show those differences.
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Methodology note
Based on monitored asking-price listings. Not transaction prices or valuations. Read the methodology.