La Gomera and El Hierro: buying a house where time moves slowly

Two islands, two characters

They're often mentioned in the same breath, but they're nothing alike. La Gomera is a wheel of rock cut by very deep barrancos, with damp forest at its centre and terraces stepping down to the sea: it's vertical, and every trip costs you a string of hairpin bends. El Hierro is lower and more open, with its great bowl facing the ocean and a windswept plateau behind it; it's the westernmost island, and remoteness is part of its identity.

The people are different too. La Gomera has had a settled international community for decades, mostly on its western side, and you feel it in the villages. El Hierro is more Canarian, more closed in the good sense: everyone knows everyone, and an outsider becomes part of the village over time, not with the purchase contract.

How to get there

From Tenerife, and that's something to factor in before you fall for a house. La Gomera is reached by ferry from the south of the island: you can go and come back in a day. El Hierro is further away, and the crossing is a proper journey. Both have an airport, but the connections are built for people who live on the islands: from abroad, you almost always change in Tenerife.

My advice is obvious, and it works: before you buy, make the trip in different seasons, with a rough sea and low cloud. It will tell you more than any viewing ever will.

What's on the market (not much, and you have to look)

• Village houses needing renovation, in the old centres: the most common type on both islands.
• Land with fruit trees, vines or palms, sometimes with a storage building: rustic land comes with precise rules on what you can build and on water.
• A few modern houses, almost always built by the people living in them: when one comes up, neighbours hear about it before any listings site does.

The market is so small that searching doesn't work the way it does elsewhere: you don't browse a list, you say what you're looking for and wait for the phone call. I log the request and let people know when something comes up; in the meantime, I suggest renting for a few months on the island, because getting it wrong costs more here than in Tenerife: reselling takes time.

Who they suit

For people who want to walk, grow things and live quietly, and for anyone working remotely who accepts that "going out for the evening" means something different here. I wouldn't recommend them to anyone who needs specialist healthcare nearby, has teenagers to put through school, or is buying to resell in three years.

On the tourism side, the 2025 Canary Islands law gives these islands, along with La Palma, gentler treatment: a house needs to be five years old rather than ten to be licensed for tourist use, the maximum accommodation capacity set by default in the absence of a local plan rises from 10% to 20% of the population of the settlement, and the licence lasts ten years instead of five. The council's own urban plan still has to allow that use.