Lorraine Williamson
The rental market in Spain has undergone a thorough metamorphosis. Real estate portals show that a large part of the properties are rented out on a seasonal basis. In some cities, there is even talk of a massacre due to this temporary rental. The Spanish Minister of Housing, Isabel Rodríguez, is going to take measures.
This rental formula has spread rapidly in recent years (when the current housing law began to take shape). This allows homeowners to circumvent some of the most controversial points of government regulation. For example, the adjustment of the rent or the extension of the contract.
According to the latest data from platform Idealista, the boom in seasonal rentals is so great that it has more than tripled in the last five years. With a growth of 232%, the market now accounts for 14% of the total supply. At the same time, permanent rental properties continue to disappear from the market: they have fallen by 33% in five years.
Temporary rental mainly problem in Barcelona
This major change is particularly visible in Barcelona, where traditional offerings have fallen by 75% in five years. “It’s a bloodletting,” says the real estate portal. Since last March, the Catalan capital has been classified as a stress area, and as such, the reference price index is applied to limit rents.
Other places where traditional rental supply fell sharply
The supply also decreased significantly in Oviedo (-55%), San Sebastian (-54%) and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (-51%). The trend is also very visible in big cities such as Madrid and Palma; In fact, they are in fifth place, with a 46% drop in the number of homes offered for permanent rental.
Places with a growing supply of traditional rental housing
In contrast, the supply of traditional rental housing has grown in just seven locations over the past five years. These are the cities of Huesca (with 112% more properties on the market), Jaén (55%), Lugo (13%), Cáceres (11%), Cádiz (6%), Teruel and Murcia (4% in both cases).
The developments of temporary rental
In terms of the development of seasonal rentals, the largest increase in supply in the last five years has been in Málaga (466%), Alicante (309%), Seville (279%), Valencia (276%), Barcelona (244%), Bilbao (217%) and Palma (208%). Increases of less than 200% have been observed in Madrid (159%) and San Sebastian (136%).
Barcelona is the capital where the weight of seasonal rentals in the overall market is very high, with 46% of the total supply. This is followed by San Sebastian (38%), Badajoz (30%), Tarragona (26%), Girona (25%) and Cádiz (19%). This is followed by the major markets of Madrid (17%), Valencia (14%), Palma (13%), Alicante (12%), Bilbao (12%) and Malaga (11%). In contrast, in the cities of Ciudad Real, Melilla, Guadalajara and Ourense, this phenomenon is only present in 1% of the available supply.
Spectacular rise in smaller markets
The biggest and most spectacular increases in the supply of this type have occurred in small markets where this phenomenon “has been practically non-existent until now and where the appearance of a handful of ads has caused very pronounced increases”, explains Idealista. This is the case in Jaén (2,500%), Murcia (1,614%), Tarragona (1,080%), Granada (1,039%) and Castellón de la Plana (1,000%). In Lugo, Teruel and Melilla, the seasonal offer has remained unchanged.
Government regulations
The Spanish government wants to stop the flight of flats from traditional rentals to seasonal rentals. To do this, she is going to require that the signing of the lease must be accredited as a reason for the rental. In other words, it will be necessary to justify the use of a temporary apartment. “We must put in place all the necessary mechanisms to prevent the circumvention of the Housing Law and to protect these seasonal rentals for what it really is: people who need a temporary rental and it is not their habitual residence”, explained the Minister of Housing, Isabel Rodríguez, last July. In this case, the temporary nature depends on the reason. “For example, a sporting event could justify two months’ rent. An academic year would be 9 months, and a study could be one year and three months,” she said.
The Spanish government is working on the development of a state platform with tourist rental apartments, including temporary apartments. It will include any furnished property rented out for less than 12 months through an online platform, such as Airbnb or a real estate agency.