Half the minimum wage. That’s what it costs today to rent a room in Barcelona, according to the latest data from the real estate portal Idealista. What a whole apartment cost not so long ago is, right now, the price of a single room (without many luxuries). Therefore it is confirmed: the housing situation in Barcelona is already a little hell.
So says the study, which reveals that the average price of a room is already at 565 euros per month, almost half the minimum wage, which since January is 1,134 euros in 14 payments.
The situation for a full apartment is not much better: the average rent for a house in Barcelona is 1,193.4 euros, so renting a room is also close to half this cost.
Rooms, outside price regulation
Measuring or studying the room rental market is difficult, since there is no official registry of rooms rented, and only those currently rented through real estate platforms can be consulted.
E room rentals in Spain are legal and can be formalized through a written or verbal contract. However, this type of rental is outside the state price regulation index, which has only been applied in Catalonia since March. An attempt by the Generalitat to regulate room rentals through a decree law failed, leaving the market without specific regulation.
In addition, many of these rentals are often done without a contract, with tenants of apartments subletting, with verbal agreements, the surplus rooms in their homes.
At the Spanish level,in the last year, the supply of rooms for rent has increased by 29%, with Barcelona experiencing a growth of 26%. This increase is the third highest among provincial capitals, only surpassed by Alicante (76%) and Malaga (29%). Despite this increase in supply, prices have also risen by 13% in Barcelona, being the city with the second highest increase after Alicante (16%).
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