AI Says My Tenerife Apartment Is Worth More. What Is That Figure Based On?

By Andy Ward, Tenerife Estate Agents

Sellers are starting to bring me Google AI and ChatGPT overviews that put a figure on apartments in their area or complex. Sometimes that figure is higher than the range I think buyers would realistically pay. I understand why an owner would put weight on it. It looks like an independent answer to a simple question: what does an apartment here cost?

The first thing I ask is what sort of price the overview is reporting. Is it what someone has paid, or what owners are asking?

That distinction is often missing. I cannot see everything that went into Google’s answer, so I will not claim it took its figure from particular listings. But I regularly see higher asking prices that have been visible for a long time without producing sales. A confident answer is not much use to a seller if it never tells them whether its numbers have worked in the market.

Three people can reach the same wrong starting point

I see the same trap in different forms. An owner checks the apartments currently advertised in their complex. An AI overview summarises prices it finds online. An agent who does not know the development well looks at those listings and proposes a similar figure.

The three answers can appear to confirm each other. Yet if they all rely on apartments that have remained unsold, the agreement is less reassuring than it looks. They may simply be repeating the same asking prices.

That is why I look for completed sales first. At Tenerife Estate Agents – Andy Ward, we have access to official recorded selling prices sourced from Spanish Land Registry records. These individual transactions give me prices, dates and recorded sizes to investigate, rather than relying on an online asking-price summary.

For a personal valuation, I generally look for comparable sales in your street or complex over the past 12–24 months. I combine them with my own completed sales and knowledge of condition, position, views and outside space. Coverage varies, and recent sales may not yet appear. The records provide evidence, while my assessment explains how it applies to your apartment. We should be careful with the owner’s belief that theirs is the best apartment in the complex. Buyers will make their own comparison.

An unsold listing is still useful data

I am not saying we should ignore apartments currently for sale. If similar homes have remained available at a particular price for a year or more, that tells us something important: those asking prices have not produced a sale.

It does not tell us whether offers were rejected, nor does it give an exact ceiling for every apartment. But a price that has repeatedly failed to work is a weak foundation for a new listing. It is more useful as a warning about where we may lose buyers.

What happens when we “just try” a higher price?

Owners sometimes want to start above the level I can support and see what happens. It is their decision, and I understand the temptation. The danger is that the test price becomes the amount they expect to receive, even when enquiries and viewings are telling us something else. A credible later offer can then feel disappointing because it is measured against a number that was never supported by a sale.

If we decide to test a higher price, we need to agree what the test means. Are qualified buyers enquiring? Are they viewing? What objections keep coming up? Are offers arriving? When will we review the price? Photography and wider marketing help a good property reach buyers, but they cannot make buyers accept a price the evidence does not support.

What to ask when AI gives you a figure

Ask for the sources. Are they current listings, advertised-price indices, or completed transactions? How long have the comparable apartments been on the market? Are they genuinely similar to yours? If the answer cannot separate asking from achieved prices, use it as a prompt to investigate, not as a valuation.

My Tenerife property prices guide explains how to read the broader figures. For a reasoned assessment of your own apartment, including the evidence that supports the price, request a personal valuation.