Rents have skyrocketed in Barcelona by more than 18% in the last year, the strongest increase among all Spanish capitals, due to the increase in demand for accommodation at a time when available flats have been reduced by 59% , the second largest drop among all Spanish capitals, according to data from the Idealista portal.
The data from the portal is in line with that provided by its competitor, Fotocasa, which estimates the year-on-year increase in rents for flats in Barcelona advertised on its portal at 21.2%, just below the 27.9% increase that rents have suffered in Alicante.
The Valencian capital is the second with the highest drop in housing available for rent, 58%, according to idealista data. The greatest has occurred in Malaga (-63%) and after them is Valencia (-51%), which have suffered increases in rents of 11.7% and 13.5%, respectively. Madrid, for its part, suffered a drop in available flats of 42%, and a rise in rents of 7.9%. In Spain as a whole, the supply of apartments available for rent has been reduced by 37%, while rents have increased by 4.8% compared to last year.
According to Francisco Iñareta, spokesman for Idealista, “the rise in rents this quarter is no surprise, it is the result of the reduction in available supply and housing policies that, far from bringing new products to the market, have frightened investors and savers and reduced the real estate park”.
The tension in the rental market has skyrocketed in all the capitals after the pandemic: the demand for accommodation has returned from students, who have recovered face-to-face classes, and from workers who teleworked from their places of origin during the pandemic. The supply of rental housing, for its part, has been reduced as tourist housing has left the residential market and because hundreds of small owners have chosen to sell their flats.
According to Guifré Homedes, general director of Amat Immobiliaris, the regulation of the rental price, first in Catalonia with caps on rent and then limiting its update to 2%, instead of applying the CPI, as well as the “constant stigmatization” of the owners by the media and political powers is leading the owners to “the constant sale of flats that they had for rent when the contract expires.” His real estate agency, he explained, has seen the supply of available flats fall by 20% and the demand for the purchase of flats by investors to rent them has almost disappeared.
Juan-Galo Macià, president of Engel
This situation, moreover, is going to get worse, since it is going to increase the rental demand and therefore the rents, according to Juan Fernández-Aceytuno, CEO of Sociedad de Tasación. “The increase in inflation, the rise in rates and the lower monthly residual income will make rent take center stage,” he explained, since they will make it more difficult to access home ownership.
This opinion has broad support among real estate agencies: 88% of those surveyed by Idealista for its Real Estate Sensitivity Survey anticipate that rents will rise or remain the same in the coming months.
