Tenants take refuge in the rooms: the rise in rents forces them to share a flat to live

• Housing Rents rise more than inflation and nullify tenants as future buyers

Between the cheapest room for rent in Madrid and the most expensive there is a difference of 2,850 euros per month and several square meters of space.

Each of them is priced more and more expensive because there are fewer and fewer available.

The skyrocketing price of studios and apartments is making sharing a flat or renting rooms the only affordable option for many people to become independent or have a roof over their heads.

Demand has multiplied in the last year

and this has generated a double effect: the number of rooms available in large cities is decreasing while their prices are increasing.

Occur in

, where he

of available stays fell by 47% in 2022 while their rents became more expensive by 25.5%, reaching an average price of 492.10 euros per month, according to data collected for EL MUNDO by

.

The trend is repeated in other large cities in the country such as

, where the number of rooms fell by 61.8% over the past year while its price shot up by 17.7%, up to 534.29 euros per month on average.

In

, prices also grew by 39%;

in

, 27.71% and in

, almost 22%.

The variation is especially striking in

, where rents for shared rooms increased by 33.14%, to 403.26 euros per month, while availability fell by 33% in the same period.

"This situation is not only the result of the room market itself, but also inherited from the housing rental market, which is at its limit mainly due to the lack of the supply necessary to meet demand. The supply of complete housing rentals has reached around Prices that make sharing housing and renting rooms the only option to access housing in these highly stressed areas.

Furthermore, it already extends not only to cities such as Madrid or Barcelona, ​​but to others such as Granada or Málaga", points out

CEO and co-founder of Atlas Real Estate Analytics.

The situation is more evident in some areas of the cities than in others and is especially worrying in the points of greatest tension, such as urban centers.

"It must be taken into account that the offer falls but it does so more strongly in the center of these cities, which is much more attractive for the demographic profile that chooses to rent a room as an option to live. In this way, in these locations the offer is exhausted or has a very low availability at prices that make it impossible for a large majority of this demographic profile to have access to housing," adds Bermúdez.

Also in Europe

The end of the confinements and restrictions once again reorganized the rental market, which had been especially altered as a result of the coronavirus.

This reorganization has brought with it an increase in demand in cities with already stressed rents, causing even greater pressure on prices and shooting up rents to levels even higher than they were before Covid-19.

The shortage of supply aggravates the imbalance and raises the barriers to access to a rental home.

The situation, however, is not exclusive to Spain.

"Currently, in Europe, we are experiencing a housing crisis due to a structural shortage of supply and, therefore, of available rental housing. In the

For the last quarter of 2022, we have been able to observe that there has been a quarterly increase of 6% in the rental price of private rooms, far exceeding studios (1%) and apartments (2%).

This could suggest that the rental price of apartments and studios [of the few that are available] is approaching its maximum, and that these types of properties may be out of reach for citizens in terms of affordability.

In addition to the general lack of availability of rental housing, citizens may be forced to look for private rooms as an alternative, which could explain why room rental prices have increased relatively more," he explains.

,

of HousingAnywhere in Spain.

Image of a room rental advertisement in Madrid.

MS

"We find people of a certain age who are forced to continue sharing accommodation even though they want to live alone. Housing prices are so high that living in a studio or a one-bedroom apartment is becoming more difficult because it is no longer affordable for an increasing number," adds Amigo.

On the European map,

leads the annual increases for individual rooms with 33.3%, followed by

(28.4%) and

(24%).

However, it is

the one that registers the highest prices for a stay, with an average of 900 euros per month, according to the

they follow him

(845 euros),

(795 euros) and

(790 euros).

The first Spanish city that appears in this classification is

, which ranks number 13;

Madrid is ranked 16th among the European cities with the most expensive rooms for rent and Valencia, 23rd.

The increase in rents in a context of skyrocketing inflation makes it difficult for tenants to save to buy a home they own;

that they can change to better rental houses or, even, that they can live in the cities where they lived until now.

But also, the rise in rents, both in complete apartments and in individual rooms,

, which in Spain occurs even later than in the rest of Europe due to the difficulties faced by young people in accessing the job market and the precarious wages of this group once they find a job.

Forecasts indicate that this trend will continue.

"Spain is one of the rental markets that is growing the most and young people are the ones who rent the most. However, young people are precisely the part of the population that has the least purchasing power. The increase in inflation has not only caused uncertainty economy, but it has also increased the cost of living, affecting rents and making housing less and less affordable. Housing affordability goes hand in hand with the amount of available housing. Therefore, the The significant increase in demand for private rooms is due to the lack of affordable housing options and the pressure to find a place to live among the scarce supply available," concludes Carlos Amigo.

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