Spain rents hit 11.8 €/m² record as supply shrinks and affordability drops

Rents hit historical highs, pushing low-income earners out

Finding an apartment to rent has become a rigorous casting: salary slips, guarantors, deposits, and an expanding list of requirements. Meanwhile, the market tightens and becomes more expensive: the average rent reached 11.7 €/m² in the first half of 2023, surpassing the 2007 bubble peak, and rose to 11.8 euros in September, a new historical record according to Idealista. The Fotocasa report Rental Experience 2023 summarizes it plainly: the market is going through «one of its most complicated moments.» The cumulative increase since 2014 exceeds 63%.

Prices now exceed the 2007 bubble peak

The numbers leave no room for nuance. If 2022 closed with a year-on-year increase of 7.4%, the first half of 2023 accelerated to 10.8%. The average rent stood at 11.7 €/m², a level not seen even during the height of the property fever. September brought another record, 11.8 euros, and the cumulative increase since 2014 already exceeds 63%.

Perception trinc the receipt. 93% of seekers consider prices «high» or «very high», with 76% of them rating them «very high.» Among those over 25, the percentage rises to 77%; in Catalonia, 88% place them in the highest bracket. In short: it is not that rent is expensive, but that it has become unaffordable for low earners.

Every measure to lower rent raises it equally

The regulatory framework has been in constant motion in recent years. The government of Pedro Sánchez has intervened the market with rent caps and evictions bans for non-payment, with the 2020 pandemic as a turning point. The measurable result so far is rent 63% more expensive than a decade ago and a shrinking supply. Every measure announced as relief has coincided with a harder-to-find apartment.

Why do landlords demand more guarantees?

Because the contract is full of distrust. Legal insecurity and difficulties in recovering the property in case of non-payment—a procedure that, it is argued, can last at least a year—have turned the landlord into a risk department. For 42% of landlords, the main problem is distrust toward the tenant; in case of non-payment, they claim, they are ruined.

The translation reaches the other side of the table. 38% of tenants admit that finding a home has become more complicated because solvency and deposit conditions have risen. Available stock is at minimum levels, and nearly 40% of tenants simply cannot find an apartment.

Who is left out of the rental market?

Lower incomes, and not only them. The price is driving two trends described by the report without euphemisms: the expulsion of lower-income tenants, who often give up moving out, and a shift from the middle class to the higher bracket. 49% of seekers now have high or medium-high income, two points more than a year ago, while the middle range drops to 26%.

There are more signs of tightening. One in four tenants who still access the market is forced to borrow money to pay the deposit. Demand for rooms in shared flats grows 14 percentage points as an emergency solution. And those who cannot even try disappear directly from the statistics: they do not search, they do not count.

Social housing that never arrives

Here the diagnosis breaks down across jurisdictions. The central government does not build housing, some argue: that corresponds to autonomous communities and city councils, starting with Madrid. Others recall that there was a time when municipal and autonomous housing companies—EMVS, IVIMA—built protected housing non-stop, pointing to plots in the capital with barracks and dependencies in ruins for decades.

The balances of recent plans do not invite optimism. From the push for small apartments for young people launched by the Ministry of Housing under José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the first promotion is still awaited; from later projects, there is no news. Protected housing appears in all programs but almost no schedules.

Legal security vs. more intervention: the underlying struggle

The real debate is not the price, but the framework. One current defends that the only effective lever is to expand supply: protect the landlord, publicly guarantee rent in vulnerable cases, lists of defaulters, and harsh measures against those who damage the property. The other favors price caps, public lifelong rental promotion, tax surcharges on empty flats, and limits on tourist rentals.

There is a third, more uncomfortable line, which argues that building is not enough while the population needing housing grows every year. The counter-argument is that the bottleneck is not demand but land and regulation. Disagreement crosses parties, administrations, and territories, and no one has found the formula.

The surprising data

While rent pushes out those who cannot afford it, another trend grows: 52% of rental seekers intend to buy a home in the next five years, the highest figure in the last five years. It is the perfect paradox. They give up renting because it is expensive and seek refuge in a purchase that, with these prices and financing conditions, is also not guaranteed.