This year 2017 has started shaking the city of Barcelona; the rents are experiencing a new boom. The rental housing stock has shot its prices by 8% throughout 2016. Data presented by the Housing Secretary of the Generalitat de Catalunya, and are based on the bonds deposited in the Incasol.
The Generalitat de Catalunya wants to set an index price that serves as a reference in the sector. In this way, it seeks to offer municipalities an effective tool to control rental homeowners, as it opens the door to penalize those contracts above this index, and to subsidize those who are below it.
The price of the rent square meter in Barcelona has undergone an interannual variation of 8%, as we have mentioned previously. If in the third quarter of 2015 it was fixed at € 11.47, in the last quarter of 2016 it was already € 12.39, which in global data makes the average price of rent increase from 765.22€ in 2015 to 825.95€ in 2016.
Less purchasing power
This rents price increase highlights an endemic problem of the city; rents go up much more than the cost of living. According to the latest data from the National Institute of Statistics (INE), the consumer price index (CPI) in Catalonia rose by 1.9% in 2016, making it clear that these two indicators operate at different speeds.
Following this same logic, salaries have increased below that 8% of rental floors. The official data set the increase by 1.06% in 2016, so renting a home is increasingly a burden for the citizen, who sees his purchasing power diminish.
Great differences between the different areas of Barcelona
Although the increase is generalized, the rent price shows that Barcelona has great social and economic differences between the different neighbourhoods of the city. As an example, we can see how in Sarrià-Sant Gervasi, the rent average price is 1,157.09 € while in Nou Barris, it is 563.99 €.
Another, still more extreme, example may be Pedralbes with Ciutat Meridiana; while the former has an average price of 1,689.60€, the second is fixed in 373.19€.
Another interesting fact shows that it is in the north and south side neighborhoods where the cheapest rental prices are, what means the periphery; as in the Marina del Prat Vermell or La Vallbona, while there is the belt from east side to west side with the most expensive neighborhoods such as Pedralbles, La Dreta de l'Eixample or Diagonal Mar.
J. A. Hernando