6 in 10 rented apartments in Barcelona leased by foreigners last year

The rental market in Barcelona and Catalonia remains marked by a shortage of housing stock and a very difficult market. Increasingly, owners are looking for “the best candidate” due to the “little supply that exists.”

This situation has led to an increase in rental contracts for foreigners, which now represent 59% of new leases signed in Barcelona in 2024.

44% of these new leases for foreigners are European and 39% American, according to the annual balance report presented by Amat Immobiliaris on Tuesday.

Throughout all of last year, the number of rental contracts fell by 18% compared to the previous year, with a two-year accumulated decrease of 43%.

In the first year of the rent cap law coming into force, prices have decreased by 1.8%.

This year-on-year drop could have been higher if not for the fact that in the first three months of the year an “artificial” growth above the average was detected due to the desire of owners to “go as high as possible before regulation.”

General manager of Amat Immobiliaris, Guifré Homedes, noted that the supply of rental housing is low and this is what is causing the accumulation of three consecutive years of decline in the number of contracts signed.

However, Homedes explained that although fewer contracts have been signed, absolute rental market income has been higher than in 2023 because the homes that have been rented have been proportionally larger, with rental prices averaging above €2,500 per month.

The demand for rental apartments is so high that the real estate agency only publishes 26% of the offer on real estate portals - which is the highest level - and markets the rest internally. In 2023, the company published ads in 85% of cases.

Linked to the lack of supply, the average duration of rental contracts has risen again to 3.92 years.

On the other hand, the number of new apartments entering the rental market continues to decrease, as investors place fewer properties on the long-term rental market.

The trend happening more and more is that, once the apartments are empty, owners look to sell the homes or withdraw them from the market so that a relative can use them.

Amat have also detailed that many of these homes that came from the rental market have been sold to buyers with Golden Visa, a scheme that gives residency to people from third countries as long as they buy a property of €500,000 or more.

The Spanish government wants to eliminate this scheme, and the announcement of such has led to a “call effect,” accelerating purchases by wealthy foreigners. According to Amat, 12% of the sales of second-hand apartments have been to non-EU citizens.