Premià de Dalt sits on the hillside above Premià de Mar, about twenty kilometres up the coast from Barcelona, and had roughly 10,700 residents at the start of 2026. It is not a beach town and it does not try to be one. What it has is space, a long view down over the Mediterranean, and a rental market where a detached house with a pool can cost less than a decent flat in the Eixample. Here is what the town genuinely offers if you are thinking about moving out of the city.
Premià de Dalt is the upper half of a municipality that got split in two, and the name says it plainly: dalt means up. The old centre sits a bit over 100 metres above sea level and several of the urbanisations climb well past that, which is why almost every street here either slides downhill to the sea or rises away from it. Premià de Mar, the coastal half, is two or three kilometres below, with the beach, the marina and the railway.
The station is the detail people underestimate. Premià de Dalt has none of its own, so you drive or take the bus down to Premià de Mar and pick up the R1 Rodalies line there. At peak times trains run every few minutes and the fastest reach Plaça de Catalunya in roughly 25 to 30 minutes. By car you choose between the tolled C-32 and the free N-II, and off peak that is about 25 minutes to the city edge. We walk through the realistic timings, including summer Fridays, in our guide to commuting from Maresme to Barcelona.
Long-term detached houses in Premià de Dalt have been listing broadly between €2,800 and €4,500 a month. A typical 300 m² house with a pool and a garden tends to land around €3,000 to €3,500. Recent examples we have seen include a 306 m² detached house at €2,950 a month and a 423 m² one at €3,450.
Above roughly €5,000 a month you are into the top of the hill, with larger plots and an unobstructed line to the sea. Per square metre, house listings here have been running around €11 to €15 per m² per month, which is a different conversation from Barcelona's central districts. We compare the whole coast town by town in real rental prices in Maresme by town.
Most of what comes up for rent is detached housing built between the 1970s and the 2000s on sloping plots, with a pool, a garage and terraced gardens rather than a flat lawn. There are renovated versions of those houses, a handful of small new developments, and occasional older masia-style properties. What you will not find much of is the parkland estate with a guest house and a paddock, which is more the Sant Andreu de Llavaneres or Sant Vicenç de Montalt profile.
Practical side of the sloping streets: parking is on the road in many parts, driveways can be steep enough to matter in winter rain, and the stairs between a garage and the living floor become very visible in the first week. None of this is a dealbreaker. It is worth funding a second viewing at a different time of day before you commit, ideally in the rain.
The town's own schools are public and teach in Catalan, with Spanish as a subject, and there is a state secondary school in Premià de Mar. Families who want the international track usually drive: the nearest well-known option is Hamelin-Laie in the Alella area, roughly 15 to 20 minutes away depending on where on the hill you live, and the Barcelona schools are more like 30 to 40 minutes in the morning. Fees and the costs that come with them are set out in our breakdown of international school fees in Barcelona and Maresme. If children are the deciding factor, our guide to the best Maresme areas for families looks at the alternatives from the same angle.
You need a car, and probably two if both adults work. Bread, a pharmacy, a couple of decent restaurants: the town centre covers that. Anything more interesting means Premià de Mar, Mataró for the hospital and the big shops, or Barcelona. The upside is that the noise floor is low. At night you hear cicadas in summer and very little else, and the view from an upper terrace on a clear February morning is the reason people put up with the steep driveways.
It also suits a particular kind of renter. Remote workers who need an office and a garden, families who want three or four bedrooms and a pool without paying Llavaneres prices, people who know Barcelona well enough that they do not need to live in it. If your priority is stepping out of the door onto a beach or a metro platform, this is the wrong hill, and what a sea-view house on this coast costs is the more honest comparison.
Tell us your budget, the number of bedrooms you need and your move-in date. We will come back with what is genuinely available, including the places that never reach a portal.
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