We have already reached that point. The housing market’s growth has been slowing in Barcelona is accelerating unabated and in just four years, it has reached an unthinkable point t’s not so long ago: renting a room in 2024 will cost the same as renting an entire apartment before the pandemic.
This is what can be gleaned from a study by the real estate portal Fotocasa which shows that, on average, the rent of a room is 582 euros per month, compared to the 450 that a 40 m2 apartment was worth in 2014, or the €564 that it could cost in 2019 taking into account the approximate average price per m2 at that time, about €14.1.
According to the report, with this rate of increase, apartment sharing will cease to be an affordable option for the people of Barcelona and, in addition, the city will begin to fail to comply with the recommendation of international organizations, which speak of not allocating more than 30% of the budget to housing.
If this is exceeded, we will reach the point where there will be no way to comply with the European recommendation since, according to this same report explains “it is relevant to remember that the salary dedicated to renting a whole house in Spain is 43%, so that has ceased to be affordable for at least seven years”.
Catalonia, the most expensive region in the country for renting a room
In Catalonia, one of the communities that allocates the highest percentage of their salary to paying rent for a room, the percentage has gone from 25% of gross salary in 2022 to 27% in 2023, according to a study by InfoJobs and Fotocasa.
If we analyze in detail Catalonia, we see that the price of rooms for rent closed 2023 with an annual increase of 5.9% and placed the December price at 582 euros/month.
This implies that, taking into account the average gross salary in Catalonia recorded by InfoJobs, which in 2023 was 26,263 euros (2,189 euros gross per month if we divide it into 12 payments); catalans have to allocate 27% of their gross salary to the payment of a room.
Tourist rental, the main cause of this increase
This price increase is largely due to the temporary rental of apartments dedicated to tourists and expats. Although a decree limiting this rental was recently proposed, the Parliament rejected this law thanks to the abstention of the PSC and the votes against of Junts with the Socialists in the government of Barcelona and Catalonia. A few days after the rejection of this law, the number of rental apartments rose by 30%.
Recently, jaume Collboni’s city council launched a plan to “manage tourist overcrowding” the city has not proposed any measures to reduce tourism or address the housing issue, so that, at this time, there are no active measures from the policy to curb the precariousness of housing in the city.