Valencia landlords demand triple income for rentals

The Valencia rental casting: €3,300 income or nothing

How much do you need to earn to sign a lease in Valencia? According to the debate, real estate agencies in the Turia capital give a round and brutal answer: triple the rent. With average prices exceeding €1,100 per month, this requires proving net salaries of €3,300. The situation does not improve in the metropolitan area: in Paterna, the average price of available units rises to €1,609, with only 83 free homes in Torrent and 25 in Mislata. Supply has collapsed, and antiestéticarful owners are selecting profiles. The result is an audition where a permanent public health post is worth more than any bank guarantee.

What real estate agencies require today to rent in Valencia

The generalization of unpaid rent insurance has turned the payslip into an entry filter. It is not enough to pay; one must demonstrate the ability to pay even in the worst scenario. Hence the triple income rule, which in practice excludes any average employee. A doctor with a permanent position, a career civil servant, a couple of teachers. This is the profile landlords seek and, according to the conversation itself, the only one that gives them peace of mind.

The problem is not just the price. It is the arithmetic of antiestéticar. If a tenant stops paying, the owner faces a procedure that, according to several voices, can last two to three years before recovering the property. During that time, the mortgage continues to run. In this context, demanding three payslips is not usury: it is risk management. Or so those who rent out claim.

The blame: housing laws or slow courts?

Here the diagnosis splits in two. One current argues that the tightening is a direct consequence of housing laws approved in recent years, particularly the framework protecting vulnerable tenants and requiring landlords to prove otherwise. They cite Royal Decree-Law 11/2020, of March 31, as the turning point: a text born during the pandemic that, according to this reading, has been extended and turned insolvency into a shield.

The rebuttal comes with specific names. Those defending the other thesis recall that the problem of slow evictions predates this: it was the same under Rajoy and Aznar. Courts already took years to execute an eviction for non-payment when the PP governed. The 2020 law worsened the situation, they admit, but did not create it. And housing prices in Madrid, with three decades of Popular Party governments and exclusive competencies in land and urban planning, have not exactly fallen.

Real prices: €550 that are now €1,100

The numbers handled by Valencia tenants paint a lost decade. An apartment rented for €550 now asks for €1,100. Another, small but central, went from €650 to €1,350. In Horta Nord, finding something below €800 or €900 is a chimera; in Sagunto or Puçol, available flats last hours. Demand has shifted to the metropolitan area and dragged prices with it.

The phenomenon is not exclusive to Valencia. In Madrid, a one-bedroom apartment with an open kitchen in the Las Mercedes industrial zone received 48 calls on the first day and was rented in three days for €1,000 to a researcher with a €1,900 salary. The owner did not need to lower anything. The queue of candidates did the work for him.

Buying is easier than renting

The paradox summarizing the market: some people can pay for a home in cash after years of saving yet cannot sign a lease. The requirement that rent not exceed 30% of net income, combined with current prices, expels solvent profiles that do not fit the picture demanded by agencies. The alternative discussed openly is a hotel, a hostel, or sharing a flat. Anything but renting alone.

The result is a market where labor mobility suffers. If changing cities implies passing a real estate audition harder than a civil service exam, many people stay put. And that, in the long run, raises labor costs in growing areas and empties those that do not.

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The solution, say some, is to tighten laws against squatting and accelerate evictions: with legal certainty, they argue, owners would drop prices by 25% overnight and rent with fewer demands. Maybe. Or maybe the problem is that in Valencia there are fewer rental apartments than doctors with permanent posts willing to sign.