Forum user says Idealista loses 50 rental flats in an afternoon in Madrid

A forum user says Idealista loses 50 rental flats in a single afternoon in Madrid

Two days ago the counter showed 9,218 rental listings. This morning at 12 it was a different number. An hour later, another. And so far this afternoon, 50 fewer flats in Madrid city alone, according to a calculation circulating in the thread. The steady decline in Idealista's rental housing stock has become a timing exercise: whoever checks the figure today won't recognise it tomorrow. The question is no longer whether it falls, but how many disappear between two coffees.

What is happening with rental flats on Idealista

The trigger the sector is pointing to is the two royal decree-laws approved by the Government with urgent housing measures, already published in the Official State Gazette. La Moncloa presented them with a financing mechanism endowed with 10 billion euros to facilitate access to housing. The problem, sources on the owners' side point out, is that the text is likely to be withdrawn in January with a new government. That interim nature is what is moving the board: nobody wants to sign a long contract with rules that can change in weeks.

The thesis gaining weight among the most critical analysts is that regulation does not make renting cheaper, it shrinks it. They argue that with inflation in maintenance costs, owners are in no position to keep flats empty bearing expenses with no income. The recipe they call for is the opposite: legal guarantees. Only with security for the landlord, they argue, would a huge increase in supply appear. The calculation is simple: if the risk of default or squatting skyrockets, the owner prefers to leave the flat empty or sell it rather than rent it out.

Why owners are withdrawing flats from the market

The scenario being drawn for the coming months is one of a standstill. Some argue that people will withdraw flats like crazy: waiting a couple of months to see what happens with the rule is cheaper than enduring a squatting procedure for years, even if the law is later repealed. In that interval, renting will be almost impossible. It is not a distant prediction: it is what is already being seen in the daily count of listings.

Against that, the opposite reading is that the market always adjusts. If the owner does not want to rent under those conditions, they sell. And if they sell, another buyer comes in who might put it up for rent. The problem with that reasoning is that the buyer who comes in is usually an investor looking for returns, not an individual who inherited the flat from their grandmother. And that investor also reads the BOE.

The precedent nobody wants to repeat

The comparison with the previous housing law comes up in almost every conversation in the sector. The criticism is that that law already strained the market and this one strains it more. The official defence appeals to access to housing as a right and to the 10 billion as a lever. Both things can be true at the same time: that there is money to buy and that there is nothing to rent.

How much weight Idealista's data carries

The portal is the most cited thermometer and also the most disputed. Some simply do not believe its figures and place it as an agent manipulating the sector. It is an accusation made without evidence, but it sums up the distrust: if stock falls, some will say it is real and others that it is a statistical artefact. What is not disputed is the direction of movement. In Madrid city, 50 fewer listings in an afternoon, according to a calculation circulating in the thread.

At that rate, rental supply is narrowing before the legislator has decided whether to keep the decree or withdraw it. How many more flats will have to disappear before the debate stops being about the counter and starts being about where people live?