Rental prices are skyrocketing and the recently published data and reports only confirm a reality that residents of large urban areas suffer on a daily basis. This same week, the Incasòl published the latest figures for the average rental price throughout the Catalan territory, information that revealed record figures in rentals during the second quarter of 2023 in Barcelona and a good part of its metropolitan area.
Just one day later, this past Tuesday, October 10, the Metropoli Institute made public a report in which it stands out that 42.6% of the population of the metropolitan region of Barcelona who live rented allocate more than 40% of your income to cover these expensesaccording to data from period 2021-2022 of the last ‘Metropolitan statistics on living conditions’.
The study explains that, although these figures have been reduced compared to the previous period, fully marked by the crisis derived from covid-19, they still There is no recovery compared to pre-pandemic figures. Furthermore, the report indicates that there has been a reduction in the difference between weight of rent on Barcelona tenants with respect to those of the rest of the metropolitan region.
Beyond the rent, the Intitut Metròpoli reflects that the expenses allocated to housing that families assume – including here rents, mortgages or supplies, among others – maintain a “growing trend which has been accentuated in the last year”.
Thus, in the last six years, the average monthly spending on housing of metropolitan households accumulates an increase of 18.3%. This expense varies between 293 euros for households with fully paid home ownership and 935 euros for homes rented or sublet.
The upward trend in rents
The high percentages of income allocated to rent have long been a constant in the main urban areas of the Spanish territory. In fact, the latest annual report of the Bank of Spain highlighted that, in 202, 48.9% of Spanish households residing in rental housing were at risk of poverty or social exclusion —the highest percentage in the European Union—.
In addition, it also pointed out that 40.9% dedicated more than 40% of their disposable income to housing —compared to 21.2% on the European Union average—, with special impact on families with lower income. “After the pandemic, in 2022 rental demand would have recovered more vigorously than supply, observing a new upward dynamic in nominal prices,” comments the report.
In the case of the metropolitan area of Barcelona, the latest data from Incasòl show that 23 of the 36 municipalities in the area registered an increase of prices during the second quarter of 2023.
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Faced with this panorama of generalized price escalation, the ‘counsellor’ of TerritoriEster Capellademanded this Monday that the Spanish Government apply the Housing Law and that allows Catalonia to regulate rents.
Furthermore, Capella stressed the lack of a public housing stock, which would allow administrations to influence the housing market more effectively. A deficit of public homes that also occurs in Spanish territory, since they represent only 1.6% of the total number of homes in the Spanish housing stock.