More than 9 million individuals already reside in areas burdened by hire | Housing | Economy | EUROtoday

More than 9 million individuals immediately reside in an space burdened by hire. This quantity represents 20% of the nation’s inhabitants, which is concentrated within the northeast of the peninsula, particularly in Catalonia. More and extra residents reside in a spot the place the market is intervened in accordance with the framework established by the housing regulation since 2023, as a result of these liable for their autonomous communities have decided this after observing that their territories adjust to the situations established by the norm: that the month-to-month rental cost and home provides exceed 30% of the typical family revenue; or that the typical hire has grown greater than 3% above the collected CPI in the final 5 years. Although there are various cities that show this case, the requirement political requesting this declaration is slowing its growth all through the remainder of the territory, particularly in these ruled by the Popular Party.

According to calculations made by EL PAÍS primarily based on the resolutions of the Ministry of Housing and the inhabitants surveys of the National Institute of Statistics (INE), greater than 9 million residents, of the virtually 50 million which are distributed all through the nation, are at the moment concentrated in these areas. After the newest additions, there are actually 304 municipalities that maintain this class, most of them situated within the northeastern space of ​​the map. Nine out of ten are situated in Catalonia. Other capitals, resembling Las Palmas de Gran Canaria or Santiago de Compostela, are finishing up the ultimate procedures to request this declaration in 2026.

18.7% of the Spanish inhabitants at the moment resides in a municipality that has adopted the classification of burdened space, distributed all through 4 autonomous communities: Galicia, the Basque Country, Navarra and Catalonia. Taking as a reference the register that the INE counted on January 1, 2025, and which units the overall variety of inhabitants of Spain at 49,128,297, this group consists of 9,192,567 individuals. A quantity during which each homeowners and tenants are concentrated. The majority are primarily based in Catalonia, the place 271 municipalities have the rental market intervened, 89% of the overall areas which have requested it since 2024. Of all of them, town of Barcelona is the one with the most important focus of inhabitants, with 1.7 million inhabitants.

Patricia Moral is 29 years outdated and has been dwelling on hire along with her boyfriend in an condominium in Poble-sec, one of many neighborhoods of the Catalan capital, for 4 months. Pay 890 euros monthly for a 57 sq. meter condominium. On the opposite finish of the telephone, she admits that she feels benefited by the actual fact of residing in a tense space, though she was the one who needed to set the bounds for her landlord.

“When we signed the contract, the monthly payment was 1,064 euros. Once we moved in, I went to the Registry [de la Propiedad] to request the simple note of the property, and I looked for the maximum amount that could be requested for it according to the reference index established by law. I discovered that it had to be much smaller and, with the help of the Tenants’ Union of Catalonia, we arranged a meeting with the real estate company. Not without fighting, we managed to get the landlord to reduce the price and, furthermore, for the real estate agency to refund us the management expenses that we had also paid without our responsibility,” he particulars. Although he achieved a substantial discount, he regrets that the landlords proceed to behave exterior the regulation. “It makes me angry that you have to investigate if you want to achieve something,” he feedback.

Declared municipalities burdened areas

The Law for the Right to Housing has, nevertheless, a escape for homeowners, because it doesn’t apply to seasonal or room leases. Something that, in keeping with some tenants, is inflicting many present long-term rental contracts to not be renewed so as to have the ability to put properties again available on the market at costs above what the authorized limits set.

“There are 10 months left until our contract ends, and they have already notified us that they are not going to renew it,” says Rubén Sospedra, 34, who has lived with two different colleagues because the finish of 2021 in an condominium on Calle Córcega, in Barcelona. They pay 1,500 euros in hire between the three of them, for a 150 sq. meter condominium. During this time, possession of the whole constructing has handed into the fingers of Vandor Real State, an actual property firm owned by the British fund Patron Capital.

“Since they entered, they have not stopped doing work on all the empty apartments, to put them up for rent by rooms. For one like ours, to which they have added up to seven rooms, they ask 700 euros for the cheapest one,” he explains. “They maintain that they are not doing anything illegal and, unfortunately, it is true,” he provides. From January 1, 2026, all rental contracts signed in Catalonia, together with seasonal or room-based rental contracts, have the identical limitations as long-stay contracts. At the tip of final 12 months, the Parliament permitted Autonomous Law 11/2025, which fills the authorized hole within the state regulation.

To the preliminary recognitions of the Catalan municipalities, some from the Basque Country had been later added, together with town of Bilbao. María Aizpurua, her boyfriend Iker and their younger son have been renting in Bilbao, in an condominium of about 50 sq. meters close to the Town Hall, for 12 years. “We are the exception to the reality of the city,” he acknowledges. They pay “only” 921 euros ―when the typical worth of a house exceeds 1,600 euros in that space―, and so they have entry to a parking house and a storage room. They preserve relationship with the landlady, who has even left their hire frozen for some time, though in recent times she has been adjusting the hire in accordance with the CPI. “I could earn much more for the apartment,” says María, who has been searching for a bigger house to purchase for years. “Things are terrible because everything we found is way above our budget,” he laments.

For Jaime Palomera, co-director of IDRA (Urban Research Institute) and creator of Housing Sequestration: Why it’s so tough to have a house and the way this will break society (Peninsula), the declaration of a burdened space favors the containment of costs, and causes that, in inhabited properties, “it is now much more complicated to make abusive increases.” However, it acknowledges the restrictions of state regulation. “This hole has allowed an increasingly larger part of the new supply to be diverted by quite a few operators to the seasonal and room market,” he analyzes. “In that market, which is the one found by those looking for a home on real estate portals, the conditions are tremendously abusive. But this is not attributable to price regulation, because we also see it in autonomous communities and cities where the law is not being applied,” he provides.

Gema Gallardo, co-director of Provivienda, additionally warns that the declaration of tense areas responds to the “displacement of the population towards large cities and towards tourist cities.” A motion that’s going down “at a global level” and that’s tremendously “tensioning” city facilities. Something that, in his opinion, requires that “more general political solutions” be taken. For his half, Enric Aragonès, spokesperson for the Tenants’ Union of Catalonia, factors out that the blind spot via which many house owners skirt the regulation “was deliberately left open”, and that, as they warned earlier than its approval, official figures present that seasonal leases in Catalonia “have multiplied by 20” because it got here into power.

Inequality and impoverishment

The Santiago de Compostela City Council seeks recognition of a burdened space for the second time. It goals to be the second metropolis to attain this after A Coruña. Last 12 months he introduced the primary utility, however the Xunta de Galicia rejected it, forcing the council to begin over. “What is clear is that if it were not for the Popular Party, which the Xunta uses to oppose the Government of Santiago – whose councilor, Goretti Sanmartín, belongs to the BNG -, rent would have been regulated for a long time,” denounces Iago Lestegás, city planning councilor of town council.

According to knowledge from the Ministry of Housing obtained from tax exploitation, within the Galician capital there have been 10,548 rental properties in 2023, whereas in 2011 there have been 7,333, which represents a development of 44% in simply over a decade. And in keeping with knowledge from the Galician Housing Observatory, depending on the Galician Institute of Housing and Land (IGVS), the typical rental worth elevated by 40.26% between 2019 and 2024: from 444.4 euros to 623.3. In these 5 years, the collected development of the CPI in Galicia was 20%, which permits the request to be carried out, extensively exceeding the three% barrier. “We believe that it is necessary to intervene in rent because it has become a source of inequality and a factor of impoverishment,” displays Lestegás.

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria is one other of the capitals that goals to attain recognition as a burdened space this 12 months. Its mayor, the previous Minister of Public Function and Health Carolina Darias, considers this declaration essential to appropriate the dysfunctions of a market that has been unleashed in recent times, particularly as a result of growth of trip housing. “There are areas of the city where traditional rentals are being killed, and we believe that this declaration can have a significant impact on many families, who will see the price of their rent reduced,” he says. According to knowledge from the Canary Islands council, the amount of rental properties has grown by 47.8% between 2001 and 2021, and the typical hire for a house of 77 sq. meters is at the moment round 550 euros. As within the case of Santiago, in 2026 they hope to attain it on the second try.

PP brake

The resistance of Madrid, one of many communities most pressured by rising demand, to declare itself a stress zone continues to show the nation’s capital into hostile territory relating to discovering reasonably priced leases. Its president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, has repeatedly said that she is against the applying of the Housing Law, contemplating that it “sinks up supply” and encourages the emergence of vacationer residences, “because owners are afraid to put their homes up for rent.”

Neither the Valencian Community nor Andalusia, the place probably the most notable will increase have been concentrated in cities with sturdy vacationer demand resembling Alicante or Malaga, additionally ruled by the PP, are in favor of finishing up the request all through this 12 months. “There are areas throughout the country that are crying out for this declaration. Because, in the short and medium term, no matter how much the creation of new subsidized housing intensifies, price regulation is one of the things that governments can do with immediate effects for the population: it is a tourniquet that makes it possible to stop the hemorrhage, protecting millions of households and increasing their disposable income,” says Palomera. “The PP should get out of its denialist bubble and pay attention to the consensus: if the market does not work, we must intervene,” concludes a supply from the Ministry of Housing.

According to knowledge from the Idealista portal – whose advertisements are being investigated by the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, together with these of different platforms, though the names haven’t been formally disclosed, for providing residences in burdened areas with costs that violate the housing regulation – between June 2023 (first month of validity of the rule) and December 2025, the typical rental worth per sq. meter has grown far more in cities resembling Madrid (+35.1%) and Valencia. (+33.3%), and even barely extra in Malaga (27.4%), which aren’t declared burdened areas, than in Barcelona (+27.3%).

However, each Madrid, Malaga and Valencia lowered their provide in these burdened areas (regardless of not being acknowledged as such) because the regulation got here into power: they did so by 4.9% and simply over 14% within the different two cities, respectively, in keeping with the Rental Observatory. This phenomenon additionally occurred in Catalonia, with an estimated lack of 35,000 properties in 2025, in keeping with the Observatori de l’Habitatge, a company depending on the Generalitat.