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The evolution of rental prices entered a field of high uncertainty due to the measure imposed by the Government of limiting the increases in monthly payments to 2%. If the claim is to put a 'ceiling' on the rise in rents, the data collected in the 'Quarterly Report on rental prices', prepared by Pisos.com, shows that the Government will not have it easy. Specifically, the average rental price in Spain reached 10,14 euros per square meter in the first quarter of the year. This represents a quarterly increase of 1,6% and more than 5% year-on-year. The most expensive cities to live for rent were Barcelona, with a price per square meter of 17,75 euros; Madrid (15,59 euros/m²), and San Sebastián (15,54 euros/m²).
This represents a variation of 10,85% in the case of Barcelona with 4,74% of the capital of Spain. At the other extreme, Zamora was the cheapest with 5,41 euros per square meter. They also have a very affordable price in Orense (6,01 euros/m²), Cuenca (6,08 euros/m²), Ciudad Real (6,17 euros/m²) and Teruel (6,25 euros/m²).
In general, the capital of Zamora is the city that has starred in the highest quarterly rental price with 8,4%, although Toledo (-3,91%) is the town that has devalued the most in this period. If we take March of last year as a reference, the greatest increase takes place in Lugo (19,84%) while Orense has led the falls with 9,79%. In this sense, the director of Studies at Pisos.com, Ferrán Font, says that "fortunately the impact of Covid-19 on the real estate sector has been less than could be expected" and adds that "we are seeing the return to post-Covid normality, which implies not only economic reactivation in general but also tourism activity and a new situation of inflation. Specifically, he points to cities such as Barcelona, Madrid and Malaga, as well as autonomous regions such as the Balearic and Canary Islands, with a strong weight of tourism, as places where the rent registers significant increases. "The owners of real estate, most of them small, see how the price of everything increases and, in many cases, they are transferring it to rentals," says the spokesman for this real estate portal.
On the other hand, in the quarterly analysis carried out by Pisos.com, the most expensive regions to live for rent in March 2022 were Madrid (12,60 euros/m²), the Balearic Islands (11,93 euros/m²) and Catalonia (11,36 .4,66 euros/m²). At the opposite extreme, between the autonomous and economic communities, Castilla y León was smuggled with an average price of 5,24 euros per square meter; Extremadura with 5,52 euros per square meter and Castilla-La Mancha, which during this period had an average value of 3,73 euros/m². In the first quarter of the year, the most striking increase took place in the Valencian Community (7,34%). On the other hand, the biggest cut took place in Navarra (-2021%). If we compare it with the figure of a year before (March 11,88), the Balearic Islands (11,71%) were the ones that have fallen the most and Asturias (-XNUMX%) the one that has fallen the most.
For Font (Pisos.com), all of the above means that “the paradigm shift towards a search for a place to better spend a possible confinement” that Covid used to “return to a classic market paradigm in the one we return to has a concentration in the big cities, which has an insufficient rental fleet”. He also highlights the lesser weight of teleworking All this, he adds, has consequences: rental prices increase, many families have difficulty accessing a rental and the youngest do not have it easy to emancipate themselves. Asked about the so-called 'Empty Spain', Ferrán Font points out that "there is also no offer available to respond to the request that wanted to emigrate from the big cities to more rural markets." What he also attributes to the lower number of infrastructures and "capacity to offer a life plan to its inhabitants (schools, employment...)".
Limitation on uploads
For its part, from the real estate portal Pisos.com, it is argued that the limitation on monthly rent increases of 2% by the Government will have "a very limited effectiveness." In this sense, the director of Estudios de Pisos.com, Ferran Font, points out, "in renting normally the responsibility lies only with the owners, mostly small ones" and criticizes that it only affects contracts whose update takes place in the next very bad. "The same number of contracts are not signed from April to June as in August," he criticizes. The representative of Pisos.com lamented that the measure "places small owners at the same level as large holders." In this regard, the person in charge of studies recalls that the rental market in Spain is very fragmented and that the leases managed by companies are barely 150.000.
Ferrán Font expressed his fear that measures such as this end for generating "a transfer to tourist rental" and, in the worst case, if the property does not have the desired reception, "it will simply be left empty". In this, he believes that all "this interventionism will drive away investment, precisely at a time when the 'built to rent' promotions were beginning to take off." Which, in his opinion, generates legal insecurity among investors.
