Rental prices have risen by over 30% in 14 capital cities of Spain in five years

Renting an apartment in Spain is 41% more expensive today than in 2016. In some locations like Tenerife, Logroño and Murcia, price increases range between 42% and 45%.

After years of skyrocketing rises, the rental cost has given a flip in its trend, initiating a reverse movement that, according to experts, will continue in the coming months. The trigger for this trend is the pandemic, which, on the one hand, contracted demand during the hardest periods of the crisis and, on the other, increased the stock of unrented apartments. However, this slight decrease in price has barely mitigated a lustrum of strong increases that have caused renting a home today to be 32% more expensive than ten years ago and 41% more than in 2016.

In June 2016 a tenant had to spend 592 euros per month for the rent of a 80 m2 house, while last June renting the same type of property cost 835 euros. This is reflected in a report of Fotocasa, which analyzes the evolution of rental prices for the month of June in the last ten years and notes that "in the last five years the rental price in Spain has suffered unprecedented increases," says Maria Matos, director of Studies Fotocasa.

Data show that, unlike the prices of housing for sale, which are still 14% cheaper than a decade ago despite the fact that in the last five years they have risen by 16%, rent has risen with unusual force during that period and has done so in almost all Spanish capitals. Moreover, in the last five years there has been only one exception: Barcelona, where prices are 1% lower today than in 2016. In other places, rises vary between 10% and 45%. In fact, rents have increased by 30% or more in fourteen Spanish capitals in the last five years, in some cases they exceed 40%. These are the cases of Murcia (+45%), Logroño (+44%) and Santa Cruz de Tenerife (+42%), followed by Valencia, which is close to that threshold with an increase of 39%.

In Castellón, Lugo and Pamplona, the increases are 35%. But there are even greater difference outside the capitals, in towns such as San Cristóbal de la Laguna (Tenerife), where rents have shot up 62% in five years; or Mijas and Torremolinos (Málaga), where renting an apartment is 49% and 47% more expensive, respectively.

Madrid, one of the capitals that has traditionally topped the list, now has below the average increase – only 28% compared to 2011 and 18% in the last five years, although there are districts where rent has risen significantly, such as Villaverde (+43%) or La Latina (+34%). The same happened outside the capital, where the price rope has tightened more strongly in numerous municipalities, with rises exceeding 30% in Leganés, Getafe and Móstoles (+31%, +35% and +37%, respectively) and reaching 40% in Fuenlabrada, where renting an 80 m2 home today costs 747 euros per month compared to 534 euros in 2016.

In this context, the slight decline in prices in recent months (last June renting an 80 m2 home was 4% cheaper than in June 2020) hardly represents a stagnation after the acceleration of recent years. A drop (that is not homogeneous) looks like year-on-year falls ranging from 1% in A Coruña, Huelva, Salamanca and San Sebastián to 11% in Barcelona and Madrid. There were also some significant increases ranging from 1% in Murcia, Burgos, Segovia, Valladolid and Ciudad Real, to 10% in Logroño, and 8% in Almería and Cáceres.


Given this scenario, what can be expected from the price of rentals? Fotocasa experts believe that "everything seems to indicate that these falls will continue over the coming months". This was stated by José Manuel Merino, general manager of the real estate portal. And although demand has returned to the market, being now even higher than pre-pandemic levels, "now the owners are much more willing to negotiate and lower prices".

As for Barcelona capital, the district with the most profitable parkings in June 2021 is Horta - Guinardó with 6.9%, Eixample (6.1%), Sants - Montjuïc (6.0%), Les Corts (5.9%), Sant Andreu (5.9%), Sarrià - Sant Gervasi (5.2%), Gràcia (5.1%) and Sant Martí (5.1%).

Source: https://www.expansion.com/economia/2021/08/24/61254339468aebe47c8b45fa.html