Idealista loses 3,000 rental listings in Madrid within days

Idealista loses thousands of rental listings in Madrid in just a few days

How many rental properties are actually left in Spain? The figure published by Idealista moves so fast that any count is out of date the moment it is taken. The starting point, taken before the two decrees, was 11,772 listings in Madrid, 10,050 in Málaga, 5,450 in Valencia, 3,792 in Barcelona, 2,441 in Seville, 630 in Biscay and 603 in Zaragoza. Days later, the same portal showed 8,800 in Madrid and just over 2,400 in Barcelona. The collapse is not a price adjustment: it is supply disappearing from the shop window.

How many rental properties are left in Madrid and Barcelona

The monitoring turned into a stopwatch exercise. A count dated 8 October put Madrid at 8,800 listings and Barcelona at just over 2,400. The next day, another measurement raised Madrid to 10,549 in the region and 8,704 in the city, with Málaga at 9,622, Valencia at 4,912, Barcelona at 3,481, Seville at 2,120, Biscay at 550 and Zaragoza at 539. The picture changed between morning and afternoon.

The discrepancy between region and city explains part of the noise: the city of Madrid and the region are not measuring the same thing, and anyone comparing figures without fixing the scope gets an unnecessary scare. Even so, the trend is unmistakable. Within days, Madrid's stock lost thousands of listings and Barcelona's more than a thousand. Dropping by the hour, one of the trackers summed up.

What lies behind the fall in listings on Idealista

The dominant explanation in the monitoring does not point to the market, but to the rule. With two recently approved decrees —rental extensions and eviction limits— part of the analysis argues that landlords are pulling their properties out of the regulated circuit and diverting them to other uses or leaving them empty. The result would be the same: less visible supply and, therefore, less competition between landlords.

Some go further and argue that the real aim of the rule is not to make housing cheaper, but to entrench the population already settled and prevent mass departures that would strain other variables. It is an uncomfortable thesis and impossible to verify with the portal's data, but it circulates with force. Against it weighs a simple argument: if the stock falls, the tenant looking for a flat has less to choose from, not more.

The provincial breakdown nobody looks at

The count by provinces leaves a very uneven map. Andalusia spreads its supply across Málaga (10,012), Seville (2,428), Cádiz (3,318), Granada (2,668), Almería (1,693), Huelva (982), Córdoba (775) and Jaén (543). Catalonia concentrates almost everything in Barcelona (3,811), with Girona at 757, Tarragona at 606 and Lleida at 186. Aragón adds 609 in Zaragoza, 228 in Huesca and 129 in Teruel.

Castilla y León offers the most extreme picture: Salamanca with 1,012 listings versus Zamora with 73, Soria with 83 or Palencia with 104. Castilla-La Mancha ranges from Toledo's 475 to Guadalajara's 120. The conclusion is that the problem is not homogeneous: there are provinces where the market was already residual before any decree.

What may happen to rentals after the decrees

The question hanging over all the monitoring is whether this drop is a statistical artefact —listings being renewed, duplicates being cleaned up— or a real withdrawal of supply. The honest answer is that nobody knows yet. What can be said is that today's picture does not look like last week's.

With these ingredients, the logical expectation would be a rise in prices due to scarcity. And yet, the monitoring does not clearly record that movement. And I thought they would fall further, someone admitted. The market does whatever it wants, not what the decree dictates.