In the first quarter of 2023, apartment prices hit a fresh peak of €1,087 a month, according to the latest data from Catalan public agency Incasòl. The rises come after rent controls put in place in September 2020 by the regional government of Catalonia were declared unconstitutional by the Spanish courts in March 2022, since when landlords have been free to charge market rates for new contracts.
There has also been a dramatic reduction in supply, with the number of rental homes advertised on Idealista falling by more than 40 per cent in four years, from 36,000 in the first quarter of 2019 to 20,000 in the same period this year. Meanwhile, Barcelona’s growing status as a tech hub is also pushing up demand for rental homes from well-paid international workers — one out of every five people living in the city is foreign, according to census data.
Prices were increasing again before the Covid pandemic, when tourists and locals fled the city and some buyers were reportedly able to buy at big discounts. In June, the average price in Barcelona city was €4,131 per sq m, up 2.5 per cent in a year and almost back to where they were at the start of 2019, according to Idealista. “Compared to London, property prices in Barcelona might seem reasonable but not compared to local salaries. Less than a fifth of my group of mostly university-educated friends in their late thirties and early forties have been able to buy homes,” says Duncan Rhodes, editor of the Barcelona Life travel guide, who pays €1,300 a month to rent an apartment in Eixample, a central district known for its grid-like layout and for its many Gaudí buildings, including La Sagrada Família.
Barcelona’s new mayor Jaume Collboni has promised to review a social housing quota adopted by his predecessor Ada Colau © Lorena Sopena/Europa Press via Getty Images In part, Barcelona’s high property costs are due to foreign investors and buyers swooping on the city — locals have long blamed Airbnb-style rentals for driving up rents — but they have also been compounded by a lack of supply.
