Victoria H. is 21 years old and is from Zaragoza. She has been studying Business Administration at the Autonomous University of Madrid for three years and explains that each September she has paid more to stay first in a residence and then in a shared flat. “For the last year I have been paying 570 euros for a room in a six-bedroom apartment in the Moncloa area,” she says. In September she will go on Erasmus to Sweden and when she returns she will search again. "Next year I don't even know if I'll have a flat," she says without complaining too much because other colleagues are in worse economic conditions.
His case complies with a certain fidelity with the prototype of a young man who travels to Madrid or Barcelona to study. Supported in many cases by his parents, he faces a year of residency until he takes over the medium and then shares a flat. And if the situation allows it, he can even complement his studies with a season abroad. His experience is also similar to the others in another way: paying for a room requires more and more effort. Specifically, 25% higher than five years ago.
The Spanish platform specialized in renting for young people Live4Life calculates that the average price of a room in a shared flat in Madrid with other university students is now 510 euros, slightly higher than 490 euros in Barcelona. In both cities, sharing accommodation is equivalent to practically half the minimum wage, located at 1,080 euros, but the market is in charge. It is enough to walk through the Facebook groups dedicated to hosting students to check the budgets that are handled for the next course.
A room in Madrid, in the Moncloa neighborhood, near Ciudad Universitaria, in a flat shared with eight people, with electricity, water, heating and Wi-Fi included, is trading these days at 700 euros. In L'Esquerra de l'Eixample, in Barcelona, in an apartment with nine other young tenants, the monthly payment is 748 euros. To that is added of course the requirement to be clean and friendly.
The increase in the last year in Madrid has been 6.2%, compared to 6.5% in Barcelona. The two cities are by far the most expensive. In Valencia the price is 330 euros, in Seville 320, in A Coruña 290, in Granada 260 and in Salamanca 220.
Despite everything, this market is heating up less than the conventional one. Idealista calculates that in Barcelona and Madrid general rental prices are at all-time highs, at 15.3 euros per square meter in the first case, with an interannual increase of 10.8%, and 15.6 euros in the second. , with increases of 9%.
The CEO of Live4Life, Alberto Añaños, explains that one of the effects of the new Housing law is the increase in the supply of more informal rentals, including those for university students. "Many owners are going to switch to the temporary rental market, significantly expanding the offer and giving young people a wide variety of possibilities," he says.
The forecast is that some owners will circumvent the 3% limit on rent increases by dedicating their apartments to less stable tenants, which will give visibility to student rooms, which fall into this category, thanks to their high turnover. This modality is attributed a lower risk of default and occupation.
This thesis is shared on the other side of the market, in real estate agencies dedicated to long-term rentals, such as Wolo. Its marketing director, Germán Rabellino, believes that one of the consequences of the new law is that "there are fewer and fewer long-term rental homes available." If the owner is not given “confidence”, “we will continue to see the migration from long-term rentals to temporary or short-term rentals,” he says. The truth is that prices for university students continue to rise, and they do so at a rate, at least, comparable to inflation.
