Spanish rental prices are showing the first signs of an upward trend, says a large rental agency.

If true, that would be good news for investors and the housing market in general, though not for people looking for rental accomodation.

The average cost of renting a home in Spain increased 0.56% in June compared to the same month last year, reveals the lastest rental prices index published by the rental agency Alquiler Seguro, reported in the Spanish press.

That means an rental price of €500/month last year would have risen to €503/month this year.

That is the second consecutive monthly increase, though rents were still falling as recently as April (-0.07%).

However, I have recently seen other rental price data sources suggesting that rental prices are still falling outside of hot markets in the big cities and on the coast, so it depends on which data you look at.

The impression I get is that nationwide, there is still a large oversupply of rental properties on the market, but much of it is unattractive in terms of location and condition. So you can have a situation in which the market is oversupplied whilst the rental price of contracts signed is increasing.