In 2023, 38,683 rental contracts were signed in the city of Barcelona, the lowest figure in the last 10 years, and 19% lower than last year, and the existence of a parallel market for the cheapest apartments was consolidated. , which are rented to acquaintances and no longer go online, according to data published by the Chamber of Urban Property of Barcelona, based on the contract deposits deposited with Incasòl.
Òscar Gorgues, manager of the Barcelona homeowners association, assures that “without contacts it is now almost impossible to find an affordable rental in the city.” Thus, according to data from the Chamber, in the fourth quarter of the year, the average rental price in the contracts reported to Incasòl was 1,178.05 euros per month, a figure 9.33% higher than that of a year before. , but much lower than the offer of the portals, in which the average price exceeds 1,300 euros per month, and where only 12% of the properties offered have rents below 1,200 euros per month: the remaining 88% do not reach to the portals.
“Landlords feel insecure in the face of so many legal changes, and fear that they will encounter a delinquent tenant and have problems evicting them. For this reason, when a contract ends, they prefer to sign another one with the same tenant, updating the rent with the CPI, or extend the contract for one year. When the tenant wants to leave, he often already introduces acquaintances of his who are interested in keeping the apartment, and that rental does not come on the market either,” says Gorgues. The obligation imposed by the Housing Law for the owner to pay the agency's fees has given the owner another additional incentive to avoid putting his apartment on the market.
For this reason, Incasòl data show that even fewer contracts were signed last year than in 2020, the year in which the covid confinement led to hundreds of apartments for students and displaced workers remaining empty. In the last quarter of the year, the drop was even more relevant and only 8,531 contracts were signed, 30.58% less than in the same period of the previous year.
All in all, the number of signed contracts doubles the available offer of apartments on the internet, which on the main portals is barely 4,000 properties. According to the director of the Chamber, in addition, on the internet there are also mostly apartments with rents of more than 2,500 euros per month, which are not normally rented by national clients.
In the same sense, Guifré Homedes, general director of Amat Immobiliaris, explained that last year 15% of the rentals brokered by his company were not even published on the internet. “We have many requests on the waiting list and when we get a flat we call them. Other times when they contact us about the apartment, when we tell them that we have already rented it, we offer them the one we just received if it is similar. And since there are so few of them, they usually rent it.”
The apartments also last hours in the portals. “Those that have affordable prices, less than 1,200 euros, we unpublish immediately, because the calls overwhelm our switchboard,” says Homedes. By managing the visits with the contacts we have received during those hours, the apartment is rented immediately.”
La Cambra highlights that in 2023 the average price per square meter in the city was 16.10 euros, 10.76% higher than in 2022. According to the business association, the increase is explained because there is an increase in the proportion of the contracts that are signed in the most expensive districts of the city and because the quality of the rental park, in which the owners have invested, has improved. Two phenomena linked to the strong weight of rentals to foreigners, who can pay more but also seek higher-level housing than local clients.
In his opinion, prices have also risen due to the same impact of inflation and “due to the strong imbalance between growing demand and supply that cannot respond at the same pace.” A problem that will probably get worse with the entry into force of rent control on Saturday, according to the Catalan APIs, since many large owners will predictably choose to abandon traditional rentals rather than accept rent discounts of an average of 20%, but that In some cases it can reach 42%. A vision in which the Idealista portal also agrees.
The Cambra study indicates that the most economical districts of Barcelona to rent in 2023 were Nou Barris, (796.81 euros, with an increase of 9.1%), Sant Andreu (910.38 euros, with an increase of 9.1%), .8%) and Horta-Guinardó (917.58 euros and an increase of 11.9%). Despite being the most economical districts, the Chamber highlights, “annual contracting is low, representing 20.88% of the total, with only 8,078 contracts.”
At the other extreme, the most expensive districts were Sarrià-Sant Gervasi (1,556.80 euros), Las Corts (1,297.86 euros), and L'Eixample (1,276.47 euros). These three districts located 33.96% of the signed contracts (13,138 operations).
