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The Boom in Tourist Apartments Cools Down

3 December 2018 – Eje Prime

The boom in Airbnb and other collaborative economy platforms has removed thousands of flats from the real estate market in recent years. The high returns that owners receive from the overnight stays of tourists are behind the phenomenon, which has contributed to a decrease in the supply of rental homes available for residents and, therefore, to an increase in rental prices, especially in the large cities. Nevertheless, this phenomenon appears to have peaked.

At least that is according to the latest results from the Tourist Apartment Occupancy Survey published by Spain’s National Institute of Statistics (INE). In October, Spain had 133,567 tourist apartments registered as such in the corresponding registers of the tourism councils of each autonomous region, which represented a decrease of 6,976 units with respect to the same month in 2017.

The decrease in October is the third consecutive monthly fall and the sixth so far this year; it comes after a period of continuous increases, which started in 2015. The maximum stock of tourist apartments in recent years was recorded in July of this year, with 167,241 units, coinciding with one of the months during which this indicator rises the most. Nevertheless, in August, the number of registered apartments decreased by 3.2% YoY, before falling by 2.3% in September and by 5% in October.

The decrease in the number of establishments took place in the last year to October in the five autonomous regions with the largest supply of that type of apartment. In the Canary Islands, where 45,958 apartments were recorded in October, the YoY decrease amounted to 2.9%, with 1,350 fewer establishments.

The most marked decrease, amounting to 13.1%, was recorded in the Community of Valencia, which lost 3,662 apartments, bringing the total to 24,280. The decrease amounted to 1.2% in Andalucía (with a stock of 18,442 apartments), 10.3% in the Balearic Islands (to 17,479 apartments) and 5.6% in Cataluña (to 10,895 apartments).

On the other hand, although the general trend is a decrease, in some autonomous regions, the volume of tourist apartments is continuing to rise, with increases in the double digits in some places, such as in the case of Cantabria, with an increase of 27.6% compared to October 2017 and of 14.8% in Castilla y León.

Original story: Eje Prime 

Translation: Carmel Drake