In our country, housing rental offers are in the rise, especially in cities like Madrid and Barcelona. If we focus on our two main cities, the rental offer rose up to 133% in Madrid and 155% in Barcelona. These are the facts and figures that the real estate portal Idealista has made public in relation to rental housing in 2020. Furthermore, this means an increase, which was not previously recalled,  in the offer of this kind of product. This situation is accompanied by a decrease in prices of about 7% in Madrid and 9% in Barcelona. There can be no doubt that the pandemic is largely responsible for the changes that have taken place in our real estate system. Some weeks ago, we wrote an article about facts and figures regarding tourist flats. In that article we mentioned one of the direct causes that have led to this rental offer increase. We explained then that many tourist flats had turned to traditional rental because of the brutal decrease in tourism originated by the pandemic. Last March, because of the confinement, the activity in all the country came nearly to a halt; it was then that the rental offer started to grow on a broad scale. This offer continued to increase month by month and it was only in December that it experienced a slight decline.

GROWTH THROUGHOUT THE COUNTRY

Madrid and Barcelona are the most noteworthy cities in this upturn regarding rental housing. We must point out that these two cities have traditionally been the ones with the least number of rental offers. If we compare rental property offers in Madrid in December 2020 with regard to the month of January of that same year, the difference is more than double (more than 14.500 homes in January and almost 32.800 in December). As for Barcelona, in January 2020, 11.400 homes came on the market for renting and almost 24.000 in December. If we take into account that March was the turning point in this growth, then we notice that in hardly eight months the facts and figures have increased more than double. In other important cities as for instance in Seville, Valencia or Malaga, something similar has also happened. In the capital of Andalusia, the increase in rental housing in 2020 was 169%, in Valencia it was 119% and in Malaga 143%. It has not escaped notice that smaller cities with rich university life such as Salamanca and Granada, the rental offer increased significantly. We must take into account that teleworking has considerably reduced the journeys of university students and this has led to an increase in rental offer. In the capital city of Salamanca this growth reached up to 118%. Granada is a unique case because the increase rose up to 251%, being the highest figure ever reached in a provincial capital.

2021: EVERYTHING POINTS TO A CONTINUATION OF THE TREND

If we pay attention to the beginning of 2021, we notice that in relation to 2020, the month of January 2021 sets an upward tone for rental offer in all our cities. In Madrid and Barcelona the increase in rental offer at the beginning of January was 129% and 111% respectively. Regarding Seville, Valencia or Malaga the increase has been 166%, 114% and 143% respectively. This invites us to think that we must not expect great changes throughout the year, unless the evolution of the pandemic takes an unexpected turn. It is also important to know how the market will behave regarding prices, whether there will be a stagnation or the prices will drop some more. In Estate One we will follow closely any information in this respect.

Picture 01: jcomp

Picture 02: Freepik