Rent prices have fallen by 6.4% in Barcelona and by 3.7% in stressed areas since the peak.

BarcelonaThe price of new rental contracts has fallen by 6.4% in Barcelona and by 3.7% in the last year in the 140 municipalities that were initially declared stressed areas and were therefore subject to the rent containment implemented since mid-March of last year. This limitation is contemplated in the first state housing law of the democracy, approved in May 2023.

These figures were released this Friday by the Minister of Housing and Urban Agenda, Isabel Rodríguez, the regional minister for Territory, Housing, and Ecological Transition, just one year after the rental price cap came into effect. "These positive figures support the policies we have implemented by the Government of Catalonia in collaboration with the Government of Spain. The first conclusion is that rent containment has led to some positive initial results," Paneque argued. Throughout Catalonia, prices fell by 3.3%.

The regional minister also confirmed that the number of current contracts increased by 3,070 units during the fourth quarter of 2024 and by 8,697 contracts for the year as a whole. Another 416 current contracts were recorded in the city of Barcelona. "Every month there have been 1,000 new contracts since we declared the areas of stressed market," said Paneque, who also wished to highlight the work carried out by the previous government, headed by Pere Aragonès: "It is also fair that there is this recognition of the good work done by the previous government."

This "stabilization" of contracts, which implies that there is less turnover of tenants in the market, is relevant because it contrasts with the data published by Incasòl in the third quarter of 2024, which included a reduction in the number of current contracts in Barcelona from July to September compared to the second quarter.

Message to the PP governments and the owners

The housing minister argued that this data means that the housing law "works" and is useful to the general interest, and went further by asking political parties, and especially the PP, to stop vetoing this legislation. "The harbingers of the apocalypse have failed," she said.

"Now that it has the blessing of the Constitutional Court, [the PP] should order wherever it governs to comply head to head with the housing law so that, as is happening in Barcelona, ​​​​prices can go down in cities like Madrid and Malaga," the minister said, referring to the ruling that Yesterday, the Catalan decree to regulate tourist apartments was endorsed.Rodríguez also addressed landlords: "I'm asking landlords to lower their rent by 5% because they could benefit from up to 90% of their personal income tax. For example, a flat costing €1,100 means the landlord could benefit from an average of €600, as could their tenants," he said.

In this regard, Collboni said that "it's a failure" of the autonomous communities governed by the right, who want to implement the housing law and are not allowed to do so due to a partisan decision. "The failure is theirs, not this law's," he said.

Data from the top 140 municipalities

These figures refer only to the first 140 municipalities declared as stressed areas, and not to the 131 new municipalities that were declared later, bringing the total number of Catalan localities considered as stressed areas to 271, home to 7 million people, 90% of Catalonia's population. Until now, the data we knew about the impact of the price cap had been published by the Generalitat (Catalan government) based on rental deposits made with Incasòl: in the second quarter of 2024, rents They fell by 5.2% in Barcelona and by 5% in stressed areas., and in the third quarter, the rental price It was contained, with an increase of 0.14% in the Catalan capital and fell by 1.1% in Catalonia as a whole. Specifically, Paneque said this Friday that rental prices fell by 1.6% year-on-year in the fourth quarter in Catalonia, according to Incasòl's financial statements.

This rent cap only affects areas under pressure and does so in two ways: first, it limits the rent price of all new contracts, which cannot increase compared to the previous contract. Second, it forces large property owners—in Catalonia, these are all owners with five or more properties—and all apartments put on the rental market for the first time in five years, to respect the reference price index.

And what about seasonal rentals?

Seasonal rentals, which have skyrocketed since the implementation of the housing law specifically aimed at circumventing the price cap, have continued to grow during this period. Throughout last year, Catalonia registered 4,187 more seasonal contracts than the previous year, a 44.9% increase.

The Government has emphasized, however, that these figures represent less than 15% of new rental contracts being signed. Minister Isabel Rodríguez pointed out that this type of rental is also skyrocketing in Madrid, where prices are not generally falling.

Currently, the Spanish government has created a seasonal rental record which is in a testing period and will be released in June, while in Catalonia, the Government and the Commons agreed at the beginning of the year on a sanctioning regime to fine owners who use this modality fraudulently, and which Parliament approved at the end of FebruaryIn the previous legislature, PSC and Junts defeated in Parliament a decree law of the ERC Government approved the day before the electoral campaign began.