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23 November 2016 – El Mundo
The Socimi VBare Iberian Properties, which specialises in the rental housing sector and which will soon make its debut on the MAB, has conducted a study whose findings show that, on average, it takes between 2.5 and 4 months to rent a home in Spain’s largest cities. “The current high level of activity in the rental market in Spain’s major cities is manifesting itself not only in terms of rising rents, but also in a reduction in the time it takes to let out properties”, say sources at VBare.
In this sense, the Socimi said that Barcelona and Madrid lead the ranking of cities for the time it takes to lease a property. On average, it takes less than three months to rent out a home in both cases. In other cities, such as Valencia, Málaga, Palma de Mallorca, Bilbao, La Coruña and Alicante, it takes less than four months, whilst in Zaragoza and Sevilla, it takes around 4 months. “Nevertheless, those averages are significantly shorter in neighbourhoods with significant demand and limited supply”, say sources at VBare.
Specifically, it takes less than two and a half months to rent out a home in Barcelona. In areas such as Vila de Gràcia, Poble-Sec, Sant Antoni and Sants-Les Corts, it takes around two months on average, whereas in Diagonal Mar, it takes around three months and in Vallvidrera, the Urquinaona-Arc de Triomf-Gran Vía triangle and the area to the south of Paseo de Gracia, it takes more than four and a half months.
“There is a certain amount of positive correlation between the time it takes to lease a property and the rental cost in euros per month, as well as with the independent price of the surface area (in euros/m2/month)”, explain sources at VBare. “Thus, broadly speaking, it takes longer for landlords to find tenants in areas with larger homes and higher rents than it does for landlords in more affordable neighbourhoods with smaller homes”. “Nevertheless, demand is high across the city and the average deviation between the different micro-markets (by post code) in terms of the time it takes to find a tenant is less than two weeks”.
In terms of Madrid, it takes slightly less than three months for landlords to find tenants. Like in the case of Barcelona, the average search times are shorter in peripheral neighbourhoods, where prices are more affordable, such as in Villa de Vallecas, and areas to the south of the M-30 (Puerta del Ángel, Usera, Vista Alegre, etc.), whereas it takes between three and four months to lease a property in the more exclusive areas of the city, such as the southern quadrant of the neighbourhood of Salamanca, Cortes-Jerónimos and along the Paseo de la Castellana.
“Nevertheless, unlike in Barcelona, for the group of post codes analysed, there is no significant relationship between the time it takes to lease a property and the price per m2 per month, although there is a link between the time it takes to lease a property and the average surface area homes in each neighbourhood: the smaller the home, the easier it is to find a tenant, and vice versa”, explain sources at VBare.
A similar phenomenon is being experienced in cities such as Bilbao (3.3 months on average) and, to a greater extent, Palma de Mallorca (which has a similar average time to Bilbao) and Alicante (3.6 months): it takes longer to rent out homes in central areas with high rents per m2, whereas it is quicker to lease more affordable properties in peripheral areas.
By contrast, in Sevilla (where it takes just over four months to rent out a home on average), there is an inverse relationship between the two variables, given that homes located in the centre of the city – which are more expensive per m2 per month – are leased out more quickly than homes in peripheral neighbourhoods (with exceptions such as Sevilla Este, where supply is limited and demand is steady) (…).
Original story: El Mundo
Translation: Carmel Drake