About 700 euros is the rent that a tenant whose income is approximately 2,400 euros per month and who allocates 30% of it to their home should pay. For two people, bringing home 2,400 euros is reasonable, as long as both receive the minimum interprofessional salary.
The problem is that the supply of apartments for two people at that price comes in dribs and drabs and sells out almost instantly.
This late winter morning there are a total of seven apartments advertised for 700 euros or less in the city of Barcelona on the idealista rental housing portal. Of all of them, there was only one that could fit at least two people: in the El Guinardó neighborhood, 60 m², two bedrooms and more or less furnished.
We speak in the past tense because it disappeared half a day after being published. The demand is fierce.
Of the other six floors, there are only two that meet the requirements for just one person to live in. That is, they have a certificate of habitability and are offered as habitual residence.
These are 20.5 m² ground floor apartments in the Sants neighborhood. It is a unique type of house, one-story, old, well-equipped but with only one room, without a room. Enough for one person to live on, in a pinch.
The other is an interior mezzanine in Vila de Gràcia. It has 23 m² and the windows overlook a patio of lights. The apartment is visibly old, but a person could live in it.
The remaining four, whether or not they meet minimum habitability requirements, are available only for temporary rental, with a contract of at most 11 months.
It is a modality that overcomes the Housing Law and the Urban Leases Law. The possibility of renewing the contract exists, but the owner may increase the price each time without scruples and the tenant may be forced to pay, each time, the commissions that the real estate agency charges for his work.
They are advertised as “lofts” or “studios”, but most of them are very small rooms with few – or zero – habitability conditions.
A “studio” in the comfortable city center of Barcelona is striking. It is, in fact, an 18 m² room on Carrer de Picalquers, one of the narrowest and most infamous streets in El Raval. The kitchen, it is implied, is shared, and so is a terrace and laundry area on the roof.
To the price -695 euros per month- you must add a non-refundable monthly fee of 95 euros for supplies, in addition to 170 euros for drafting the contract at the beginning and 96.8 euros for the final cleaning fee. And two months of bail.
Also surprising is a “loft” near Plaça de Sants, which is actually located on the -1 floor (therefore, a basement), which only has a small high window that overlooks the floor of the light well. And the same is a small apartment at street level in Sant Genís dels Agudells, a neighborhood at the foot of the Collserola mountain range, far from the city center.
The lack of supply brings with it what every owner wants: and that is that every apartment that is published is rented in record time.
This puts tenants in a compromising situation: only those with a better profile, with greater solvency, can access the rentals with lower prices when they come on the market.
And the owners have the power. Anyone can put their apartment for rent with the guarantee that it will be rented soon and with greater control over the tenant’s profile.
In fact, with the excuse of minimizing the risk, the owners already see themselves legitimized to choose their tenant and they make it evident. In the advertisements there are notes such as “students and temporary workers are prioritized”, “a study is carried out on the interested parties and non-payment insurance is contracted” or “the income is required to be demonstrable and to be at least triple the value of the rent”.
As a result, the most vulnerable tenants, for whom these lower prices would be a necessity, find it impossible to find housing to call home.
To reverse the situation, the authorities have declared that starting this week all the measures of Law 12/2023 for the Right to Housing would come into force in the areas that Catalonia has presented as stressed.
The primary intention is to extend current rents, contain rents and, in some cases, reduce them to those established by the new rental price reference index.
The sector fears that the effect achieved will be the opposite. Monitoring will be necessary to verify whether, in the coming weeks, the supply of affordable rentals grows or if, on the other hand, owners take their properties off the market, sell them or offer them, even more so if possible, as temporary rentals.
