With the stunning Sagrada Familia basilica, whimsical Parc Guell, and the historic old town, it’s no surprise that Barcelona is one of the in the world.
In 2023, 15.6 million holidaymakers visited the Spanish city. Yet such high tourist numbers have had serious consequences for the city, as locals struggle to find affordable accommodation because appartments are transformed into vacation rentals.
“This is the biggest problem in our city,” Mayor Jaume Collboni said at a June press conference.
He then caused a sensation by announcing that the city would no longer renew vacation rental licences and also not grant any new ones.
Barcelona currently has more than 10,000 short-term rental apartments but by November 2028, when the last licences expire, it won’t have any.
According to Collboni, rent in Barcelona has gone up by more than two-thirds, or 68%, in the past ten years, while the price of buying a property has increased by 38%.
“For people who earn an average income, this has become a real problem,” he said.
As tourist numbers rise, rents rise
Konstantin Kholodilin, a reseacher at the German Institute for Economic Research, studies the impact of vacation rentals on the real estate market.
“The more vacation apartments there are, the more rent rises,” he said.
He says on average, the rise is between 2-3%, although this varies depending on the location. Vacation rentals have also made real estate prices increase, as buyers are interested in investing in properties they can rent to tourists.
The vacation rental market has boomed since the emergence of Airbnb and other short-term rental sites. According to the European statistics office, Eurostat, online platforms arranged more than 700 million overnight stays in the EU in 2023. That’s a 66% increase over the 440 million stays recoreded in 2018.
According to the German Holiday Home Association, almost half of overnight stays made by tourists in Germany are in short-term rentals instead of hotels.
As a result, major cities around the world are . New York’s tightened rental regulations, which came into force in September 2023, are just as radical as those in Barcelona.
In New York, rentals for less than 30 days are now only possible if the apartment is officially registered, and the landlord lives in the apartment. In addition, a maximum of two guests may be accommodated.
“Housing should be for New Yorkers, hotels should be for tourists,” said Ben Kallos back in 2021 when he was a New York City council member advocating for an end to short-term rentals.
Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin, Lisbon and other popular tourist destinations are also imposing tough restrictions on vacation rentals.
Saying no to foreign buyers
The fact that a growing number of people are buying property abroad in popular holiday destinations also contributes to tense housing situations. , for example, were directed against property developers and agents targeting foreign buyers as residents struggle to access affordable housing.
Similarly, on Spain’s Balearic Islands, every third property is sold to buyers who are not residents of Spain. Such sales pit Spanish earners against buyers from northern Europe where salaries are higher.
In order to reduce the strain on the domestic real estate market, various countries, including Denmark, Finland, Croatia and Malta, restricted the sale of real estate to non-residents years ago.
Meanwhile, new EU regulations on vacation rentals also promise positive change. The measures will help facilitate data sharing between online platforms and the respective local authorities and help to combat illegal vacation rentals.
Doubts about the effectiveness of regulations
It remains to be seen whether laws put in place to regulate the vacation rental market will ultimately prove effective. According to Konstantin Kholodilin, studies have shown that both property prices and the number of offered on rental platforms have fallen as a result of regulations in some cities.
But the expert is sceptical that regulating vacation rentals alone will ease the tense housing situation.
Barcelona’s tourist apartments association Apartur is also highly critical of the city council’s decision to abolish vacation rentals.
The association’s chairperson, Enrique Alcantara, believes the law will simply lead to a growth in illegal rentals.
Alcantara points out that short-term rental apartments make up just 0.77% of the city’s total housing and says the ban o them is nothing more than a “cover for the failure of housing policy.”
This article was originally written in German.
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