The New Golden Mile

At the mouth of the Guadalmina river, a Roman bath house from the third century still stands with its vaulted roof intact, and the river beside it separates the municipality of Estepona from that of Marbella. It is a good place to begin, because the New Golden Mile is the name of a stretch of coast, not of a town or an official district.

The name is used for the coast road between the eastern edge of Estepona town and San Pedro Alcántara. You will not find it on any municipal map, so before looking at homes here it helps to know who is responsible for which part.

The coast

People have used this shore for a very long time. The Romans set up factories along it to salt fish and make garum, a sauce exported across the empire. Near the mouth of the Guadalmansa river stands the Torre de Guadalmansa, one of seven old coastal watchtowers in the municipality of Estepona. The Costa del Sol tourism board notes the remains of Roman baths beside it that may have belonged to the town of Salduba.

At the Marbella end, the Las Bóvedas baths are among the most important Roman thermal buildings preserved in Spain. They were used from the third century until the fifth, and they keep an octagonal central hall with a pool, two floors and their heating system. A watchtower of the same name was added between 1571 and 1575. San Pedro Alcántara also has the early Christian basilica of Vega del Mar, dated to between the fourth and sixth centuries and known for its unusual baptismal fonts.

The Guadalmina itself is only 28 km long. It rises in Sierra Bermeja and passes through Benahavís before reaching the sea. San Pedro’s beaches have received Blue Flag awards since 1993. Walkers can follow the Estepona to Marbella stage of the Gran Senda de Málaga, which links the towns at the two ends of the strip.

Getting around

The free A-7 runs the length of the strip, and the AP-7 toll motorway runs parallel to it. San Pedro Alcántara, at the eastern end, is about 60 km from Málaga–Costa del Sol Airport. Gibraltar International Airport lies in the other direction, beyond Estepona.

Avanza’s L-70 bus connects Marbella and Estepona, the towns at either end of the strip. Its airport lines L-605 and L-613 link both towns with Málaga airport. Timetables and stops change with the season, so check them with the operator before relying on the bus.

For the hills, the A-7175 leaves the coast road for Benahavís. Estepona’s bus station, with coaches to Algeciras, La Línea and further afield, is on Avenida del Litoral in Estepona town.

The property market

Official statistics are published for municipalities, not for the New Golden Mile. The figures below therefore cover Estepona or Marbella as a whole, including their town centres and inland areas, and give background to the strip rather than prices for it.

• Consejo General del Notariado, homes sold in the latest 12 months published (retrieved August 2026), comparing the two municipalities: the whole of Estepona recorded 3,168 sales at €3,437/m² (average price €434,200), and the whole of Marbella 4,037 sales at €4,665/m² (average price €788,970).
• Ministerio de Vivienda y Agenda Urbana, home transactions based on notarial data, from the second quarter of 2025 to the first quarter of 2026: 3,173 homes sold in Estepona, 26% of them new builds, and 4,082 in Marbella, of which 12% were new builds.
• Registradores de España, Estadística Registral Inmobiliaria: Málaga province registered 8,873 home sales in the second quarter of 2026, averaging €3,254/m² and €338,816 per home.
• Registradores de España: in the fourth quarter of 2025, foreign buyers accounted for 12.5% of home purchases in Andalucía and 13.5% nationally.
• The NLS, sold prices for the municipality of Estepona: a median of €3,630/m², based on 15 sales so far in the third quarter of 2026. With a sample this small, the median may move sharply between quarters.
• The NLS, asking prices for the municipality of Estepona: €4,793/m² across 356 NLS listings in the third quarter of 2026, measured as asking prices on NLS listings at that date.

These sources do not measure the same thing. A deed signed at a notary, an entry in the property register and a price on a listing are recorded at different times and for different groups of homes, so the figures will differ.