Barcelona rental activity

Where homes come up for rent

Per 1,000 homes, so a big barri does not simply outrank a small one. el Barri Gòtic runs 26.9 a year, la Verneda i la Pau 6.6 — a fourfold spread across 53 barris.

20 barris are left out: under 50 certificates in a year, where the rate swings on a couple of flats.

What actually comes up for rent

The registry describes each home as well as counting it. Pooled over the last 12 months, that is 11,242 Barcelona homes — the only public description of the rental stock as it comes onto the market, rather than as it is advertised.

That 61 m² is worth holding onto when reading any price per m² on this site — including ours. A rent quoted per square metre sounds abstract until you multiply it by the size Barcelona actually rents.

The energy figure is the certificate's modelled estimate, not a bill anyone has paid: it assumes standard use and says nothing about your tariff or how you live. It is worth knowing because it is the one running cost a listing never mentions, and at these ratings it is not small.

What this measures, and what it doesn't

• It counts activity, never price. It says how many homes were being prepared to rent out, not what any of them cost.
• It counts paperwork, not contracts. A certificate is required around the time a home is let, so this measures that step — how closely it follows the number of contracts actually signed is weaker than we first claimed, and outside 2020–21 not statistically established.
• The current month is left out entirely. A month that hasn't finished always reads low, and setting a partial month beside complete ones invents a fall that never happened.

For what people actually pay, barri by barri, the rent figures are the page you want.

Questions

Why do energy certificates say anything about renting?

Because you cannot legally rent out a home in Catalonia without one, and the registry records the reason each certificate was issued. Counting only those issued for a rental gives a count of homes being prepared to go on the market.

Is one certificate the same as one rental?

No. A certificate is valid for up to ten years, so a home rented twice inside that window needs only one, and some are taken out for a rental that never happens. It is an indicator of activity, which is why it is shown as a trend rather than as a number of contracts.

How closely does it match the official numbers?

Less closely than we first said. Across all 35 quarters the correlation with INCASÒL's registered-contract counts is +0.64, but drop 2020 and 2021 — when both series were measuring the same lockdown — and it falls to +0.29, which is not statistically significant. So this is a count of a legally required step that happens around a letting, published while the official figure is still silent. It is not a stand-in for the number of contracts signed.

Why does the line drop every August?

Because Barcelona does. August runs between a third and a half of July in every year on record. It is the reason every comparison here is against the same month a year earlier rather than against the month before.