Average cost of renting fell in July
The average price of rental housing in Spain fell by 0.4% in July. The average now stands at 8.08€ m²/month. This monthly decrease breaks the trend of recent months which saw costs steadily rising.
The current average price takes us back to November 2010 when the rental average was 8.10€ m²/month.
“Today, renting a flat in Spain is almost 10% more expensive than a year ago, but our price index is already starting to fall on a monthly and quarterly level. Rents will continue to rise because the demand is much higher, although in most of the country we are still far from the levels of the boom years,” explains Beatriz Toribio, Head of Studies at fotocasa.
Autonomous Communities
In July, the average price of rental housing increased in 15 of the country’s autonomous communities on the monthly variation. On the annual variation, there were increases in 16 communities. The year-on-year variation was +9.6%, the third highest annual increase in recent history. The year-on-year variation has now had 29 consecutive months of increase since it began to climb in 2015.
Four communities showed an annual increase over 10%. These were Catalonia (17.3%), the Canary Islands (12.4%), Madrid (10.8%) and the Balearic Islands (10.1%).
The monthly increases ranged from 3.7% in La Rioja to 0.1% in Castilla y León and Cantabria. At the other end of the table we saw the average price of renting fall in only one community: the Balearic Islands (-1.8%)
Since reaching the maximum price in May 2007 (10.12€ m²/month) the price of housing has accumulated a fall of -20.2%.
Price Ranking
Catalonia is the most expensive community to rent property, with an average price of 11.97€ m²/month. It is followed by Madrid (11.55€ m²/month) and Basque Country (10.57€ m²/month).
The communities with the lowest average rents are Extremadura (4.77€ m²/month) and Castilla-La Mancha (4.97€ m²/month).
When looking at price evolution by province, we see increases recorded in 35 in July, when compared to June. The increases range from 3.7% in La Rioja to 0.1% in Cantabria and Badajoz. There were price drops in 13 provinces with the variations ranging from -0.2% in Seville to -3.8% in Huelva.
