Despite the interest of large investment funds and speculators in the real estate sector to get a large piece of the housing pie in Barcelona, the Catalan capital maintains a certain balance regarding the distribution of ownership of the residential park. This is revealed by the report Structure and concentration of home ownership in the city of Barcelona in 2023, recently released by the Barcelona Metropolitan Housing Observatory (OHB). The study puts the number of homes in the city at 794,272 and the number of owners of these flats at 524,357, which means an average of 1.5 homes per owner and a very high volume of owners who only have 'one, in the vast majority of cases, most likely, the one where they habitually reside.
The study provides a fairly accurate idea, beyond the digressions of a political nature, of the weight of the big holders in the distribution of the housing stock in a city which, according to the official data provided last week by the Generalitat , the third quarter of 2023 set a new record for the average price of a new rental (1,171.28 euros/month).
The estimates carried out by the OHB indicate that the owners of more than 15 flats in Barcelona represent 0.5% of the total owners (2,593) and are the owners of 14% of the city's housing stock, which is that is, 111,140 units. However, the big – very big – holders are the 14 owners who each own more than 300 homes. If we look closer at the large landlords who own more than 15 homes, we can see that 46% of the cases are natural persons, and 54%, legal persons, and the vast majority (48% of the total), companies.
The OHB report points out that the property structure in Barcelona "is characterized by a large majority of holders corresponding to natural persons". Specifically, they represent 97% of all owners and own 84.7% of the city's homes.
The study to which La Vanguardia has had access has been prepared by the Observatori Metropolità de l'Habitatge de Barcelona, dated December, basically from two statistical sources: the alphanumeric base of the General Directorate of the Cadastre and the register municipal cadastral register of Barcelona City Council. It does not distinguish the use of the homes (if they are habitual and permanent residence, second residences or for tourist use) or the tenure regime.
The OHB report also analyzes the distribution by neighborhood of the homes that make up Barcelona's deficit public housing stock. The percentage of public housing, increasingly oriented towards affordable rent, has been progressing in recent years, but at desperately slow steps. This situation could take a small leap forward if the coming times confirm the promises of the administrations to make housing policies the number one priority. The current reality indicates that there is still a very long way to go: despite the fact that the city of Barcelona and its metropolitan area are among the regions of Spain that are producing the most public housing, this residential typology barely represents 1.8% of the total .
In a dozen of Barcelona's 73 neighborhoods, there is no record of any flats owned by public administrations. And only five neighborhoods have more than 15% of publicly owned homes. Can Peguera stands out among all, where 69.1% of the 1,001 registered homes fall into this category. Then, Torre Baró (31.7%), Marina del Prat Vermell-Zona Franca (29.5%), Vallbona (23.3%) and Baró de Viver (22.5%). These are, as a general rule, neighborhoods with family incomes among the lowest in Barcelona.
In the data for the third quarter of 2023 published last week by the Generalitat de Catalunya, Torre Baró appeared precisely as the neighborhood in the city of Barcelona where you have to pay the least money for a new lease (494.68 euros per month), while in neighborhood with the highest percentage of public housing, Can Peguera, in the first nine months of last year only two rental contracts were signed there out of a total of 30,152 signed in the municipality as a whole.
The Marina del Prat Vermell deserves a separate mention, where one of the largest housing reserves in the city is being defined - in fact, the creation of a new neighborhood of trinca - and where public flats will have a presence very relevant Mayor Jaume Collboni certified this on Wednesday during a visit to one of the public housing developments that will be delivered in the coming weeks to tenants in the aforementioned neighborhood of the Sants-Montjuïc district. There the batlle assured that Barcelona still has enough land to build housing, both protected and on the free market, and specifically cited the Marina del Prat Vermell, the northern area of the 22@ and the Sagrera-Bon Pastor as the places where make it possible
