or pay more or will have to look for another floor

Housing is, by differencethe greatest economic expense for households in Spain. According to dataof The countrythroughout 2025 more than 300,000 households in Spain will see how their rental contracts signed for 2020 expire, the year in which the pandemic promoted a large number of renewals and new leases.

The renewal of these contracts will bring an increase in their fee to update to the market price, which will not only raise the economic pressure of householdsbut will initiate a process of deepest changes As for the population and availability of rental housing.

THE GREAT RENTAL REVIEW. In 2019 the Urban Lease Law (LAU)extending the duration of the contracts of three to five years (or seven if the landlord is a company). Therefore, 2020 contracts signed after the approval of that law will begin to expire throughout 2025.

This mass review is a kind of “funnel effect” in the rental housing market that will increase in the monthly installments that were signed in 2020, or the cancellation of these contracts. There is no exact figure of the number of contracts that will be affected by this review in their quotas but, according to The data collected by The countrythe figure would range between 220,000 and 300,000 lease contracts.

Bad news for tenants. Many of these tenants signed in 2020 rental contracts With moderate pricesconditioned largely by the uncertainty generated by the pandemic. Five years later, and with the rent market for the clouds, the tenants face revaluation that can range between 20% and 30%, increasing even more in very tension or tourist areas.

According to data From idealist, the average price of rental housing in April 2020 was 10.7 euros per square meter per month. In the same period of 2025, its price has increased up to 14.3 euros, which represents an increase in the monthly fee of 38.3%. That assumes that a tenant paid average in 2020 a monthly rental of 856 euros for an 80 square meter house, but in 2025 that same house will cost 1,144 euros per month. The cities like Madrid or Barcelona, ​​the current price would have doubled.

Tensioning areas. The Government approved aProtection measures package for tenants before the disproportionate increase of rental fees, following the wake of the measures that already had been taken in Catalonia. This new regulation established limitations to the increase in the rental price by renewing the contracts and linked those increases to the Lease reference index which varies month by month. At present, it places that increase in 2.09%.

The problem:

1. The regulations only apply when the rental housing is in a tension zone and its contract is in a renewal situation. So the measure does not apply to new contracts.

2. The declaration of tension zone depends on Each autonomous community. In April 2025, only Catalonia, Navarra, Asturias, the Basque Country, the Canary Islands and the Valencian Community had declared municipalities as a tension zone. So, the homes located in the rest of the communities that they have not declared themthey cannot benefit from the limitation of increases in the price of rentals and renewal is done according to market prices.

An unprecedented situation. The conjunction of the entry into force of the Housing Law with the extension of the duration of the contracts and the price escalation in the rentals of recent years leaves an unpublished scenario in the real estate market, but which will be repeated from now on.

Now, the landlords of those rental floors, in their Most small ownersare faced with two options: or renew the contract with an increase in limited price or cancel the current contract and put the house in the market again with current prices. The decision is not so obvious.

The dilemma of the landsters. If the house is in a tensioning area, the owner is obliged to respect the increase marked by the lease index in renewal, but ceases to be canceled and signed a new contract. That is, as Javier Gil, a researcher at the CSIC and in the Urban Critical Studies Group (GECU) to El País, these episodes always facilitate the circles of speculation by the homemade. ” The homemade could prefer to risk not renew the current contract and put the house again in the market to Obtain greater profitabilitysell it or allocate it for tourist rental.

On the other hand, those little owners who are satisfied with your tenants They might choose to apply moderate increases below the market value, even in non -tensioning areas where the law does not force it, in order to maintain stable and guaranteed profitability, although it loses short -term profitability.

Greater rental demand. One of the effects that this large -scale renovation is that, if many of these contracts are canceled, the pressure on the rental market will increase more since more tenants will be forced to look for an affordable rent, and each time they will have and move away more from the urban nuclei to get them. In turn, the rental offer will be reduced with those properties that pass for long -term rental for tourist rental, seasonal or that goes into the sale market.

According to data From idealist the number of interested parties in each rental offer that was published on the platform had increased by 20% during the first quarter of 2025. that is, a greater demand for a Lower rental offer long lasting.

In Xataka | In Catalonia a house of 12 square meters for 600 euros per month is rented. It is a garden booth

Image | Unspash (Anton Khmelnitsky)