59% of the two-bedroom apartments that can be rented in Spain have a price "that exceeds the threshold of reasonableness" and requires excessive financial effort from potential tenants, according to a study published by the Idealista portal. The situation varies in the different capitals, and is especially serious in the cities of Malaga, Palma, with 86% of the flats exceeding the financial capacity of the families, and in Barcelona, where it is 80%.
According to Idealista, a rent is reasonable if a family can access it by allocating 30% of their income, taking into account prices and average wage income in their city. For Spain as a whole, a family with an average income that does not allocate more than 30% of it to rent should pay a maximum of 767 euros per month, while the median price of a 2-bedroom apartment in May 2022 was 830 euros per month.
Malaga, the portal points out, is the city where it is more expensive to rent for local citizens. In the capital of the Costa del Sol, only 14% of the 2-bedroom apartments are economically suitable for a family with an average income in the city: the reasonable price of a rental is 755 euros per month, while the market price for a 2-bedroom apartment in the city reaches 905 euros.
Next comes Palma, also with 14% of the flats with prices below the reasonable limit, and Barcelona, with 20% of the park suitable for reasonable rents.
Less stressed are Alicante, where the average income would give to rent 32% of the homes, and Madrid with 33%. With percentages below 50% are the cities of Valencia (34%), Bilbao (38%), San Sebastián (40%), Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (43%), Cádiz (45%), Salamanca (47% ) and Seville (48%).
On the opposite side, the cities where it is more affordable to rent a flat are Teruel, where 100% of the two-bedroom flats would be accessible to a medium-income family, followed by Zamora. Ávila and Ciudad Real (99% in the 3 cases), and Palencia, Jaén, Cáceres and Ourense with 97% of their park.
Idealista recalls that not only do rents vary greatly in different cities, but so does the salary level, which sets the effort threshold for rent to be reasonable. Thus, the city with the highest reasonable rents is San Sebastián, where a reasonable budget reaches 1,092 euros per month. It is followed by Madrid (1,075 euros/month), Barcelona (1,011 euros/month), Girona (980 euros/month), Toledo (946 euros/month), Bilbao (929 euros/month), Palma (913 euros) and Pamplona ( 906 euros/month).
On the opposite side, reasonable rents are lower in Zamora (723 euros/month), Huelva (729 euros/month), Salamanca (742 euros/month) and Alicante (744 euros/month).
For an average family, made up of 2.4 people on average, their accommodation should be at least a 2-bedroom apartment. The average rent for a home with these characteristics is 1,457 euros per month in Barcelona, 1,276 euros in Madrid or 1,230 euros in Palma, the most expensive cities.
Regarding the differences between the reasonable price and the market price, Barcelona shoots up compared to the rest, since the market rent is 446 euros more expensive than the reasonable one. Below are the differences between Palma (317 euros more expensive), Madrid (201 euros) and Malaga (150 euros).
