Spain’s new left-of-centre coalition government will publish an index of nationwide rental prices by the end of March, according to a spokesman for the Transport, Mobility, and Urban Planning ministry (MITMA).
The move represents a first step towards enabling rent controls in Spain, where rent has increased by 50 per cent in the five years leading up to last August, according to a 2019 Bank of Spain report.
Limiting rises in rental prices was one of the measures promised by the new government, which says guaranteeing the right to decent housing is a top priority.
Spain long boasted some of Europe’s highest property ownership rates, but since the financial crisis a growing number of people have been priced out of the market.
“The issue is an urgent one,” MITMA minister Jose Luis Abalos said in parliament. “We will introduce laws which will limit rent rises in certain areas where pressure on the rental market is high.”
To create the index, a working group of academics, statisticians and real estate experts is cross-referencing local registry data with records from the National Statistics Institute, according to the government’s housing department.
The index will allow councils and regional governments to detect large increases in rental prices in real time, and they will decide whether they want to cap prices.
The number of 30-34 year-olds living with their parents due to inaccessible rent prices has increased sharply, according to a report last month from the Bank of Spain.
