The municipality of Barcelona is one of the 140 in Catalonia in which the new rental regulation will be applied. The Catalan capital is one of the areas most stressed by rental prices, which in recent years have skyrocketed until reaching an average price for a new contract of 1,171 in the third quarter of 2023 (the latest official data known). 28 euros. This amount exceeds by 253 euros what was paid two years ago and, if we carry out a retrospective exercise until the year 2000, it practically triples the bill for renting a home in Barcelona that had to be paid at that time.
The future regulations agreed upon by the Spanish Government with the Generalitat establishes that the rent of new lease contracts may not exceed the price of the last contract in force in the last 5 years after the annual update of the CPI. The regulation also states that if these are homes owned by a large holder (more than 5 urban apartments), the rental price may not exceed the reference index. This reference index will be approved in the coming weeks and will be used to declare tense areas in the 140 municipalities identified by the Territori department of the Generalitat, municipalities in which nearly 80% of the Catalan population lives.
Concern about the increase in rental prices in Barcelona and also in the municipalities of the metropolitan area, even those in the second ring of the Catalan capital, has been increasing in recent times.
The year-on-year increase registered in 2022 (more than 100 euros compared to the previous year) is the largest recorded so far. 2022 was, precisely, the first year in which the prices of a new rental in Barcelona exceeded the barrier of 1,000 euros per month. At the end of 2023, all records could be shattered: from the 1,026.86 euros that had to be paid to rent a home in Barcelona in 2022, it has gone up to 1,171.28 for contracts signed in the third quarter of 2023.
The increase in prices contrasts with the stagnation or even decline in the supply of rental apartments in the city. The year 2021, the end of the pandemic, marked a historical record in terms of the number of operations signed in Barcelona: 57,158 contracts were formalized that year, almost 6,000 more than in 2019. Contracting fell by more than 9,000 units in 2022, which was closed with 47,927 contracts. And judging by the statistics accumulated during the first half of 2023 (21,218 contracts), it does not seem that last year's numbers will come close to those of 2021 either.
In any case, it is increasingly evident that Barcelona, like most large Spanish capitals, is ceasing to be a city of property owners. One fact is enough: in the year 2000, less than 15,000 new rental contracts were signed in this municipality. It was mortgage time. The 2008 crisis definitively caused a change of cycle.
