Report: Average Rents Down 33.1% in Seven Years

Home rents in Spain have dropped 33.1 per cent in the last seven years, led by a 42.2 per cent drop in Aragon, according to data tracked by fotocasa.es, the property portal.

Other communities with big drops included Valencia, where rents are 37.7 per cent below peak levels, and Cantabria, where rents are down 37.9 per cent. In Cataluna, rents are down 30.7 per cent from a peak of €996 a month for an 80-square-meter home, the firm reports.

The smallest drop was recorded in Castilla y Leon, where the average rent fell a scant 15.6 per cent, fotocasa says.

Overall, the average rent for an 80 square-meter apartment was €810 a month in May 2007; now it is €541 a month, the firm says.

The data may not be surprising to anyone who follows Spain’s property market – the surplus of homes has been well documented – but fotocasa.es does provide benchmarks. And the information may prove interesting to investors contemplating potential rental yields.

As of July, the area with the highest rental rates was Basque Country, where rents average €780, 17 per cent below peak levels. The cheapest area was Extremadura, where the average rent for an 80 square-meter home is €360 a month.