72
72

Tecnocasa: Average Rents Reached €8.54/sqm In 2014

19 February 2015 – El Mundo

Rental prices (in 2014) were slightly higher (+0.47%) than at the end of 2013.

The market is suffering its greatest declines in Madrid (-1.57%) and Barcelona (-0.59%).

The typical landlord profile: pensioners (28%), Spanish nationals (96%) and married (70%).

The typical tenant profile: single people, with permanent employment contracts, aged between 25 and 44 years old and Spanish.

The Tecnocasa Group has presented its first report about the residential rental market in Spain (a groundbreaking study). Highlights show that the average cost of rental homes amounted to €8.54/square metre (in 2014), which is slightly higher (+0.47%) than at the end of 2013.

With these figures on the table, Tecnocasa says that “rental prices have remained stable (upwards)”, although it acknowledges that there has been a slight decline in the two largest Spanish cities. Specifically, rents became 1.57% cheaper in Madrid and 0.59% cheaper in Barcelona, where prices amount to €10/sqm in absolute terms.

One must go back to 2007 to find the last report about rental prices nationwide. The then Housing Minister, María Antonio Trujillo, presented the OEVA (the State Observatory for Rental Housing or ‘Observatorio Estatal de la Vivienda en Alquiler’), which was the first official survey about the market. It was also the last. That study reported that the average price of rental housing was €7.20/square metre.

Tecnocasa’s study shows that the profile of landlords, i.e. of the people that lease out their properties, includes a high percentage of pensioners (28%), Spanish nationals (96%) and married people (70%). In terms of the profile of tenants, they are single, with permanent employment contracts, aged between 25 and 44 and, for the most part, are Spanish.

Lázaro Cubero, Director of the Department for Analysis and Reports (Departamento de Análisis e Informes or DAI) at the Tecnocasa Group, notes that rental prices have decreased by less than purchase prices in the last year, which means that “the yield a landlord can obtain by renting out a home that he/she owns is now greater”. Specifically, this yield has increased to 7.41% on average for the whole of Spain.

These figures represent the findings of the first report about the rental market conducted by the Tecnocasa Group and the Univerisdad Pompeu Fabra (UPF), based on a study that analyses data extracted from the property rental agreements brokered by Tecnocasa’s network (of agents) in Spain between 2012 and 2014.

Original story: El Mundo

Translation: Carmel Drake