Flatsharing at 50 in Santiago de Compostela: fewer than 150 rentals, prices from 650 euros

Flatsharing at 50: the new rental market in Santiago de Compostela

Pedro turned 50 on 25 April, the day of the carnation revolution, and celebrated by moving into a 415-euro room in a renovated house at the entrance to the old town of Santiago de Compostela. He shares the property with a pilot in his early thirties and a middle-aged couple from Venezuela. He had previously lived alone. For three decades he was self-employed in the textile industry and even became a partner in a firm that billed large sums. He returned to Compostela in 2023 for a fresh start, only to find that the rental he was looking for never fell below 800 euros. In O Castiñeiriño they asked him for as much as 900. Last year he finally decided to share, something he had never done before.

His first attempt was a 70-square-metre flat on praza de Vigo for 670 euros, shared with a German university lecturer. A six-month contract, renewable. Fifteen days before it expired, the owners told them the flat would be converted to tourist use. Out they went. The scene sums up the problem: on the Idealista portal there were fewer than 150 homes available for rent in Santiago de Compostela, and only in a few cases does the price fall below 650 euros.

Why workers end up flatsharing

The phenomenon is no longer just a student one. Estate agents confirm it. At N&R they noticed such demand that from January they peine a specific business line for room rentals. Emma Martínez, chairwoman of the Asociación Galega de Inmobiliarias (Galician association of estate agents), explains it bluntly: there are investors who buy flats to let them by the room because returns are higher and the risk of arrears and squatting is lower. Unlike the standard housing contract, protected by the Ley de Arrendamientos Urbanos (Spain's urban tenancies act), room rentals are governed by the Civil Code and depend on the will of the parties.

Martínez also points out the drawbacks. The model was typically a student one, people who shared habits, schedules and lifestyles. Now workers without that common ground live together, which complicates house rules and drives up turnover. «In any case, faced with a housing shortage or rental prices, this option above all offers a housing solution to many people», she argues.

Pedro tells it from the inside. He lives in a three-storey house: on the first floor, a bedroom and the shared living room; on the second, his bedroom and the kitchen; on the third, the washing machine and the third bedroom. «We are together, but not mixed up together», he says. Before moving in he spoke with the estate agent because he is meticulous and demanding about cleanliness and needed to know whether his flatmates would meet those standards. So far the experience is positive. «With this flat, which has no garage, I can already say I hit the jackpot. It's in the centre, in good condition, and I pay a price I can afford».

The empty stock and the housing law

The shortage is not explained by a lack of new building alone. In Santiago de Compostela, 11 % of homes are empty, some 6,200, according to a figure circulating in the debate. The number gives an idea of how speculation distorts the market, argues the person who uses it. Some point out that many of those homes have been empty for more than five years, before the housing law was passed, while others reply that the report itself states that only 1.5 % of those empty homes are in habitable condition.

The other front is landlords' legal insecurity. It is argued that renting has become risky because evictions for non-payment take months and an insolvent tenant does not answer for damage. That calculation, added to the boom in tourist flats, is pushing homes out of the residential rental market, according to those who make the case. In Santiago de Compostela, only 21 % of the tourist flats registered with the Xunta (the Galician regional government) will be allowed to keep operating, adding pressure to an already suffocated market.

The six-month contract that was not legal

Pedro's case leaves a technical detail with consequences. That six-month renewable contract contained, according to the legal analysis circulating, abusive clauses: the flat was a primary residence, so renewals should have been annual and mandatory at the tenant's request for at least five years. In this case, five years and six months, because the owner decided the first contract should last six months. The practical consequence: the tenant was exposed to an eviction notice with just fifteen days' warning.

The debate over causes is split. One camp argues the problem is the lack of construction and municipal management: they point out that the city hall has been in left-wing hands almost without interruption since 1982 and that this has limited the development of new housing projects. Another camp replies that the phenomenon is European and not ideological, and that in countries with lower unemployment and more available land access to housing has also deteriorated. And a third focuses on investment funds and touristification as the main drivers.

What happens when flatsharing is no longer temporary

The model spreads because the alternative does not exist. For a middle-aged worker with no inheritance in sight, long-term renting becomes a trap: incomes stagnate, prices rise and ownership remains out of reach. Some recall that the reasonable goal of any worker is to have a roof of their own, however modest, by a certain age, because the hardships of old age fall on those who rent.

Pedro believes room rentals are set to grow. He has already lived in Madrid and Seville, and recalls that the latter even has a development on its outskirts devoted to it. His motto is another one: «When you're up, no one can put you on a pedestal, and when you're down, you can't sink». He applies it every morning as he goes down to the kitchen on the second floor.

The startling fact is not his story. It is that in a market with fewer than 150 flats available and prices that rarely fall below 650 euros, a 415-euro room in the historic centre has become a prize.