Valencia: 50 applicants queue to rent a 70 m² flat in Spain

Renting in Valencia has become a casting call: 50 applicants for a 70 m² flat

A landlady puts a renovated 70-square-metre flat up for rent in Valencia, Spain, and before even posting the listing she already has a waiting list of 50 people. This is no exception: it is the market. According to the account gathered during repairs at the property, the landlady's phone kept ringing non-stop as she explained to each interested party that the list was closed. The pre-screening —two payslips or a guarantor— deterred no one, and the owner even considered withdrawing the ad just to stop receiving calls.

The phenomenon is not limited to rentals. A young man who works at a real estate agency in the same city describes an extreme situation: available housing is increasingly hard to find, and a valuation from a few years ago of a 65-square-metre flat at over 100,000 euros would, he says, now be revised 50% upward without any renovation. The sales market has also tightened.

Why are 50 people waiting to view a flat in Valencia?

The short answer: demand far outstrips supply. In the case described, the landlady applied an explicit filter —two salaries or one with a guarantor— and yet the queue never dropped below 50. The phone rang without pause, with missed calls piling up while she attended to other candidates. The landlady herself admitted she had to take down the listing "or I'll go crazy".

That funnel is not just about one particular flat. In Valencia's rental market, available listings number in the hundreds, but applying a price cap makes the figure collapse: with a 900-euro limit, 128 listings remain, and at 800 euros, barely 38. These are the figures flat-hunters work with, and they explain why a modest home can generate a waiting list.

Some argue that the underlying problem is not only migration pressure but the push from foreign buyers —retirees and remote workers— who choose Valencia for its quality of life and relative cost. In just a few years, the city has gone from being a secondary destination to competing with Seville or Benidorm in tourist arrivals, and that pull spills over into property.

Rents in Valencia double within the same building

An owner renting out a flat in Valencia for 650 euros —renovated, unfurnished, with a garage— finds that similar homes in his own building are being advertised for 1,300 and 1,500 euros. The question he raises is inevitable: will he renew the current contract or look for a new tenant when it expires? In two years, the jump is more than double.

The answer he gets from other corners of the market is unanimous in form, not in substance: it depends on the tenant. A tenant who pays on time and causes no trouble is worth more, to many, than an extra 200 or 400 euros a month. The most repeated advice is to raise the rent without reaching market rate: if the area suggests 1,200, set it at 900. The risk of squeezing the price is ending up with someone desperate who leaves within three months or turns property management into a second job.

The problem is not just prices. Some argue that legislation and slow courts have turned renting into a perceived-risk activity: missed payments, damage and endless proceedings. That calculation leads many owners to leave homes empty or turn to tourist rentals, further reducing the residential supply.

Sales: valuations 50% above levels of a few years ago

The sales market trinc the same curve. A 65-square-metre flat valued years ago at over 100,000 euros would now be appraised, according to the estimate circulating in the sector, 50% higher — and without renovations. The scarcity of supply is also pushing sale prices up, and investors appear as the dominant buyers as soon as an attractive property is listed.

The phenomenon has a social side that creeps into any conversation about housing: the feeling of competing for a roof as if it were a civil-service exam. Those who can afford 1,500 euros a month rarely look for an old flat in a working-class neighbourhood, and those who live in such a neighbourhood cannot pay that amount. The result is a market that pushes middle-income profiles to the outskirts or into renting by the room.

There is another often-overlooked factor: the rise in single-person households. More divorces and fewer stable partnerships miccionan more homes needed for the same number of people. With an average of 100,000 divorces a year over the past two decades, the sector's calculation is two million additional homes from that factor alone.

What about the flats that go unrented in the outskirts?

The narrative falls apart once you leave the major hubs. In commuter towns with no tourist appeal, rental flats are just as scarce. The argument repeated there is that Airbnb is not the issue: the problem is the law and owners' antiestéticar. The consequence is a parallel market where supply is hidden, rented out opaquely or simply left empty.

Meanwhile, the Mediterranean coast, the Balearics, Madrid and the Canary Islands concentrate foreign demand. The conclusion many analyses reach is uncomfortable: Spain competes for global capital, and the local wage earner plays in a different league. With these gaps, internal migration should be massive. It remains marginal. No one can quite explain why.