The interest of families in buying or renting housing in towns with less than 5,000 inhabitants has decreased in the four Catalan provinces compared to 2021, according to the report published by the Idealista portal, and which confirms that the new 'rural exodus' that It occurred during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Of all of Catalonia, Lleida is the province where the search for properties in small rural areas falls the most, dropping to 22.9%, 6.9 less than in 2021, while Girona follows closely with a drop of 6.6%. , and in Tarragona and Barcelona there have been less significant decreases.
In fact, in Barcelona it has only decreased by 0.2%, but it is one of the provinces where the weight of the search for housing in small towns has increased, accounting for 1.6% of the total, a figure that in the previous 2021 study was 1.5%.
The increase in prices in large cities such as Barcelona, and which occurs in similar places such as Pontevedra, València or Málaga, is considered the effect of searches having grown in smaller towns, according to Idealista.
Although the study confirms the opposite effect throughout the Catalan territory and, in general, throughout Spain, and leaves the 'rural exodus' as something temporary of the Covid-19 pandemic, as declared by the portal's spokesperson, Francisco Iñareta:
"The interest in establishing domicile in areas far from the urban environment only increased significantly, since they offered larger homes, with access to gardens, and at a lower price," he argues.
As is the case in Catalonia, in the rest of the territory it has been the most depopulated areas that have seen the drop in interest the most, with Cuenca with the greatest decrease from 46.8% to 29%, followed by Teruel (from 48. 8% to 35.9%) and Huesca (48.5% to 35.6%).
