In July, the prices in Barcelona fell by 3.1 percent, while in Madrid, the drop was only 1.7 percent. This is welcome news for Barcelona residents who had been suffering extortionate rental prices, particularly in central areas such as El Born.

One of the main reasons for this could be due to the lack of tourists in Barcelona, meaning landlords aren’t able to rent out their apartments to holidaymakers with high weekly prices and are forced to rent to residents with more reasonable prices instead.

Because of drop in prices, it means that now the Spanish capital is the most expensive city to rent in Spain. In Madrid, the average price is now 16.3 euros per metre squared and in Barcelona it’s 16.2 euros per metre squared, according to monthly data provided by estate agent Idealista.

As stated in an article in invertia El Español, since May the price in Madrid has fallen by 2.8 percent and in Barcelona by 7.6 percent.

Apartments in Madrid are the most expensive in Spain | Photo by Alex Vasey on Unsplash

Prices also fell in other regions of Spain in June. In the Balearic Islands, average rental price fell by 3.6 percent, in the Canary Islands by 2.2 percent, in Navarra by 1.9 percent and by 0.5 percent in Valencia.

In Spain as a whole however, the rental price reached an average of 11.3 euros per square metre, representing an increase of 0.1 percent, even though the prices decreased in the main cities, according to the Idealista report.

In nine autonomous regions, the average rental price grew in June, leading to increases of 4.4 percent in Cantabria, 2.3 percent in Extremadura, 2.1 percent in Murcia and 1.9 percent in Galicia. Andalusia had the smallest increase with just 0.3 percent.  

The report also states that as it stands now, the Community of Madrid is the most expensive region to rent in, at an average of 15.1 euros per square metre, followed by Catalonia at 14.5 euros. The next most expensive regions are the Balearic Islands at 12.7 euros per square metre and then the Basque Country at 12.1 euros per square metre.

On the other side, the cheapest regions to rent in Spain right now are Extremadura at 5.4 euros per square metre, Castilla-La Mancha at 5.6 euros per square metre and La Rioja at 6.6 euros per square metre.

A total of 34 regional capital cities experienced a drop in rent. Average rents fell by 3 percent in Seville and Palma de Mallorca, by 2.6 percent in Valencia and by 1.8 percent in Malaga.