Spain’s rental market has already been difficult for years—but according to property expert Sergio Gutiérrez, it’s about to get worse. “I hate to say it,” he warns, “but tough times are coming, especially for those who are most vulnerable.”
Gutiérrez, a well-known voice in Spanish real estate, says the issue isn’t just rising prices—it’s that soon, many people simply won’t be able to find anything to rent at all.
The real threat: shrinking supply
While much of the public debate focuses on how expensive rent has become, Gutiérrez draws attention to another growing crisis: a lack of available properties, especially affordable options. This looming shortage, he says, is being driven by a combination of factors: landlords’ fear of renting to vulnerable tenants, increasingly restrictive regulations, and regional limits on short-term lets and even room-by-room rentals.
The result? A market where homes are no longer just expensive—many simply disappear altogether from the rental pool.
Catalonia: a storm is brewing
The situation may be particularly severe in Catalonia. Gutiérrez points to proposed legislation that could significantly restrict temporary lets and room rentals. While standard longer-term rental contracts will remain legal, they’ll be capped by official rent control indexes. Many landlords, faced with lower margins and tighter rules, are choosing not to rent at all.
“So what will they do?” Gutiérrez asks. “They’ll sell up, or rent the whole flat to a single household—but stop offering bedrooms to individual tenants. And that’s a problem, because for many people, renting a room is their only financially feasible way to live near their workplace, university or support networks.”
Vulnerable tenants left behind
Gutiérrez makes a stark prediction: the market is becoming increasingly competitive, skewed in favour of people with the best financial profiles. Good salary? Solid employment contract? No dependents? You’ll get the flat. Otherwise, you might be out of luck—no matter how great your need.
“There’s always someone with better conditions than you—and you’ll lose out, even if you need the home more,” he explains. “Be careful,” he warns, “because if you need to rent after the summer, chances are, you won’t be able to.
Can anything be done?
The big question hanging over the debate is how to fix this. Between rent controls, legal loopholes, and disappearing supply, the market seems to be imploding from within—especially for lower-income renters.
Unless policies can be designed to protect tenants without scaring off landlords, Gutiérrez believes Spain is heading toward a dangerously unbalanced rental ecosystem—one where demand far outstrips tightly regulated supply.
“This isn’t a housing bubble,” he concludes, “but it is overheating. And when something overheats too much… it eventually burns.”
