A year ago Catalonia decided to start regulating her rentals. Now it has something that seemed impossible: lower prices

In a context marked by the Price climbingrecord rents and a real estate market that Start nonsense With the costs prior to the 2008 brick crisis, Catalonia wanted to break yesterday with the bullish rhetoric. Their rentals are going down. And quite clear in addition. In the region as a whole, the leases cost today, on average, 4.7% less that a year ago, a decrease that reaches 8.9% If we talk about Barcelona.

With that data, the Generalitat wants to breastfeed by the First year of price regulation in the 140 tension municipalities in which the Housing Law applies.

What happened? That the Generalitat of Catalonia has just done something unusual in real estate information in recent years: to use a negative sign to talk about prices. According to The data broken down By the Minister of Territory and Housing, Sílvia Paneque, the average lease It has been cheaper In the region as a whole and, in a special way, in those municipalities in which the price regulation was applied a year ago under the protection of the state law Housing

How much has it dropped? The information handled by paneque is based mainly on the Bail deposits And it shows the “photo” of the Catalan real estate market throughout the first quarter of the year, which allows analyzing how prices have evolved between the beginning of 2024 and 2025. Its first conclusion is that the whole of Catalonia the middle rent has experienced a year -on -year fall of 4.7%.

If we look concretely in the 140 municipalities that declared tension markets in March 2024 And in which, therefore, prices were allowed to regulate in certain cases, the descent is somewhat more pronounced: reaches 4.9%. The big surprise leaves her specifically Barcelona. There the average cost of rentals has collapsed several more points, to mark an annual fall of the 8.9%.

And how do contracts evolve? That is the second surprise that has left paneque. The counselor ensures that this price drop has not arrived accompanied by a contraction of the Catalan rental market. Moreover, according to your data in the first quarter of 2025, the number of lease contracts in force in the region has increased by 3,112. “It continues to grow, which tells us that the rental park increases,” defended The leader.

He release Shared by the Generalitat does not allow, yes, to assess whether the rhythm of the new leases has risen or down the last year. What the counselor clarifies is that “a large part” of the contracts that were already in force have lengthened. Or what is the same, moves are reduced. The country Precise that in the tensioning municipalities the new contracts have decreased by 22%.

How do you interpret the data? “We believe that the clarification in the contracts has helped to have these good data that allow us to say that there are 11,807 more homes for rent than a year ago,” celebrate The head of Housing, who points out that the majority (7,865 contracts) are concentrated in the 140 municipalities declared tension in 2024. In the Barcelona case, during the first quarter of 2025 the total number of rental homes has increased by 423. “There are 1,202 more households for rent than a year”, Apostille The Generalitat.

Why is it important? Because beyond the implications it has for the Catalan real estate market and, specifically, the landlords and tenants of the region, the data presented by Paneque shows the practical effects of the regulation of rentals and the application of the housing law released to In March of 2024. Generalitat herself wanted to emphasize a message whose interest transcends its borders. After all, Catalonia was The only community that applied the law.

“The data are good and show us that containment and legislative and regulatory measures help to guarantee the right to housing on this road until reaching a public park of 15%,” insisted The counselor of the branch.

Are the first data known? No. Paneque is not the first to slide that idea. In Marchwhen an exact year of the application of the rental price index in 140 municipalities of Catalonia, Minister Isabel Rodríguez already claimed that the data in the region showed that “the Housing Law works”. By then the fall of the amount of leases in Catalonia it was 3.3%. In the city, the decrease reached 6.4%.

Is it all positive? No. On Tuesday, Generalitat himself shared data that show a seasonal rental boom, a formula that is normally agreed for periods below the year and It allows to dodge The norm. If in 2019 it represented just 2.1% Of the rental floors announced in Barcelona, ​​in 2023 it already meant 14.4%. And the information revealed yesterday by Paneque suggests that they have gained weight in the community real estate market.

The data handled by the Generalitat shows that 2,242 contracts Temporary of the first quarter of 2024 has passed, during the same period of 2025, to 3,415. In other words: the formula has experienced has increased considerable, from 52%, in just one year, gaining weight among the new contracts.

During the first three months of last year, 6.1% of the new agreements signed in Catalonia were adjusted to that temporary modality. At the start of 2025 they already represented 11%. Aware of that accelerated boom, the Generalitat It has been proposed Limit prices in those seasonal rentals that have residential use, a decision that the Generalitat creates more justified than ever.

And the rest of the contracts? The counselor He celebrated yesterday That the new regulatory framework and price regulation offer more stability to tenants by now having the great less incentive to get their homes to the rental market. “We are seeing that a large part of the contracts in force are extending their duration, which translates into the reduction of extinguished and, therefore, in greater stabilization,” Highlight.

His statement is however some nuances. Shortly after the new regulation in the 140 Catalan municipalities considered tension markets, some tenants They warned since the landlords were extending their contracts for reasons that have little to do with the stability of their tenants. His main motivation was a good different: not having to lower prices.

Images | Ansar Naib (UNSPLASH) and Jorge Salvador (UNSPLASH)

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