Mark Stücklin
Spain’s housing crisis is no longer just about high prices. According to property portal idealista, the rental market is undergoing a deeper and more troubling transformation that is systematically excluding large swathes of society.
In a year-end assessment of Spain’s housing market, idealista spokesperson Francisco Iñareta describes a situation that has crossed from chronic shortage into outright national emergency. Supply continues to shrink, prices keep rising, and political debate remains locked in ideological trench warfare rather than evidence-based problem-solving.
While idealista expects further house price growth in 2026 and a broadly stable mortgage market, the most striking—and worrying—arguments are reserved for the rental sector.
The rental market: from shortage to exclusion
Iñareta argues that years of legislation aimed at protecting sitting tenants have had serious unintended consequences. While current tenants may feel shielded, those looking for a home face an increasingly hostile market. Thousands of rental homes have been withdrawn and sold, leaving demand to fight over a dwindling pool of properties.
The result is not just higher rents, but something more corrosive: the practical impossibility of renting at all, even for households that can afford the advertised price. On idealista, more than 50 applicants now compete for each rental listing. Landlords respond by running what amounts to a financial “casting process”, selecting only the safest possible profiles.
Families with children, people over 65, single-income households and single parents are routinely filtered out, not because they cannot pay today, but because they are perceived as riskier tomorrow.
The ‘elitisation’ of renting
This dynamic, according to idealista, is driving an “elitisation” of the rental market. As supply falls, the level of financial qualification required to secure a tenancy rises sharply. Many households who previously rented without difficulty are now excluded altogether.
Iñareta summarises the outcome starkly, and the quote is worth reproducing in full:
“Put another way, measures designed to protect the vulnerable first pushed the vulnerable themselves out of the market, then those who could potentially become vulnerable, until reaching the current situation in which broad sections of society are systematically rejected.”
It is a devastating indictment of policy failure: a system designed to protect ends up excluding precisely those it was meant to help.
Sales and mortgages: continuity, not relief
Beyond rentals, idealista expects 2026 to bring more of the same. House prices are forecast to keep rising, supply to remain tight, and transactions to stabilise at high levels, often fuelled by former rental stock. Mortgage conditions should remain relatively favourable, though no longer improving.
But none of this addresses the core problem. Without a serious increase in supply—new homes, fewer political roadblocks, and a shift away from populist blame—the pressure simply moves around the system.
As the idealista article concludes: “2026 will be a year of continuity: rising prices, intense demand pressure, scarce supply, and a narrative focused not on finding solutions but on looking for scapegoats.”
