Rents have increased in Spain. Quite a few. So much so that in cities such as Madrid or Barcelona, ​​the average amount requested by landlords is well above the budget of tenants, and there are many families who have to resort to great lengths to cover the costs of their homes. But this is only part of the problem. For many tenants, temporary contracts, insecurity and the gradual increase in rental prices lead to another equally important phenomenon: “forced” moving.

A study by the Barcelona Urban Research Institute (IDRA) analyzed these and other trends, warning of the extent to which renters are exposed to the volatility of a highly unstable and increasingly expensive market.

It moves, but it moves “forcibly”. During their study, the researchers asked themselves a simple question: What drives a renter to move, at least in the two major Spanish cities they focused on? His initial conclusion is that 30% of moves can be considered “forced relocations,” a change of residence that the tenant does not want. In Madrid, this label matches 30.8% of recent address changes. In Barcelona, ​​this rate represents 31.6%.

“If we analyze the main reason for the move, we see that three out of every 10 moves are forced displacement; these include non-renewal of the contract, unaffordable increase in the rent, inability to continue paying, etc. Participated by experts from various universities and with the support of the EU’s Horizon 2020 Programme.” The prepared report includes the phrase “evacuation order or pressure and harassment from the property”, one of whose most notable authors is the head of the IDRA Housing Area and Sindicat de Llogateres. Its co-founder is Jaime Palomera.

What’s behind these changes? This is the next question that IDRA’s analysis answers. Not all “forced removals” respond to the same causes, and in fact, when the magnifying glass is removed and the event is examined in detail, other interesting trends are detected. First of all, court-ordered evictions represent a very small portion of forced removals.

According to the researchers, the vast majority of these are what they call “invisible evictions,” moves that are unwanted by the tenant but are not motivated by a sentence and therefore do not appear on an official record. The study also misses another important idea: The “forced move” figure may be higher because there are tenants who consider the factors that force them to pack their bags to be natural.

“In many cases, what could be considered a forced eviction, such as livability issues, is experienced as a ‘voluntary’ decision to move. According to the data, more than half of rental homes present at least three livability-related issues; “moisture, poor insulation and accessibility, or water and It is stated that situations such as problems in electricity supply are mentioned.

before settling down. The truth is that, at least in Madrid and Barcelona, ​​tenants move relatively frequently. They also don’t spend much time at home. There is information that clearly reflects this phenomenon: six out of ten renters in these two cities have lived in their current home for less than five years, which for IDRA means “high turnover in the rental market”. Moreover, 34.2 percent of respondents in Madrid and almost 39 percent of respondents in Barcelona say they have been living at their current address for two years or less.

This is not the only data that invites thought and reflects the instability that tenants are dealing with. If they have been in their current home or apartment for a short time, this is largely because they move frequently. The research shows that more than 60 percent of tenants in the capital and 80 percent of tenants in Barcelona have moved house in the last five years. In fact, 40% had to make two or more moves during this period.

Key: impermanence. If the authors of the article devote time and space to one thing, it is to talk about one of the biggest features (and handicaps) of the Spanish residential rental market: transience. Unlike what happens in other European countries such as Germany, Scotland, France, the Netherlands or Sweden, where indefinite lease agreements are important, agreements with an expiration date prevail in Spain. The report suggests that in Madrid or Barcelona, ​​90 percent of tenants have temporary contracts at market prices, “which leaves them at the mercy of speculative changes.”

Its authors are clear on this issue and underline two ideas. First, temporary contracts have clear beneficiaries, and they are not tenants. “They are functional in the interests of landlords, agents and property portals.” The second thought is that “not protecting tenants” is a 40-year-old problem. More precisely, the study traces its origins to the 1985 ‘Boyer Decree’, which eliminated permanent contracts on the grounds that they reduced supply, although the authors emphasize that this continued to decline until 2007.

And “extreme distrust” came. The quotation mark is again a term used in its full sense in the IDRA report. And, as with “invisible evictions”, it reflects very well the reality it aims to reflect: the predominance gained in the residential rental market is no longer temporary contracts, but “seasonal” or one-bedroom contracts.

Home seekers no longer face the problem of living in an apartment for only 5 years and having to pack their belongings due to the landlord’s unaffordable price increase when the contract renewal time comes. The perspective many tenants now find themselves in is to only sign a lease for a few months. After consulting real estate portals, researchers found that such offers, namely seasonal rentals, have skyrocketed by 55% in just one year. In Barcelona they actually represent 40% of the total rental offer.

In management’s target. The proliferation of these contracts has led the Government to take action to ensure that homeowners applying for seasonal contracts can justify the “temporary nature” of these contracts. “We will not accept legal fraud,” sector minister Isabel Rodríguez warned this summer. This does not mean that the report warns that Spain is an “exceptional case” due to “high insecurity” or that the “lack of protection for tenants” has worsened over the past decade.

“In addition to these contracts, which border on legal fraud, 8.6 percent of tenants in Madrid and 9.4 percent in Barcelona do not have a contract or have a verbal agreement. Of these, 49.5 percent in Madrid “In Barcelona, ​​58.3 percent are tenants. The room market is serious in both cities,” he adds in his analysis: “In summary, nine out of ten tenants are vulnerable to invisible evictions and price increases. abuser”. The 7.6% of old leases and social leases that guarantee “genuine protection” will be exempt.

drowned tenants. The research initiated by IDRA touches upon many issues such as the role of agencies, the upward impact of real estate portals on prices or price increases. For example, 45.5% of tenants who have lived in their homes in Madrid for more than five years find themselves with rent increases higher than the simple annual update of the CPI at the end of this period. In Barcelona there is a higher percentage in this situation, 61.1%.

If there is one piece of information that stands out in particular and is consistent with the information collected in other analyses, it is the extent to which rents impede tenants’ economics. “The relationship between house price and average disposable income of households has not stopped since 2015,” he warns. In percentage terms, this means that 68.7% of renters in the capital and 71.4% of renters in Barcelona are in a state of “overexertion”, meaning they spend more than recommended (30% of your income) to make ends meet. rent and bills.

Pictures | Sunguk Kim (Unsplash), Kaspars Upmanis (Unsplash) and Alex Vasey (Unsplash)

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