Barcelona Bans AirBnb – the end of tourist rentals?

Big news here in Barcelona:

Our new mayor, Jaume Collboni, announced yesterday that he wants to ban tourist apartments.

The current licenses, he says, will expire in 2028 – and that will be the end.

So, is this adiós to AirBnb?

Well, maybe.

La Vanguardia reports that the industry is ready to fight back, and that the court cases may last for years.

The Spanish Constitutional Court (which apparently, is different than the Supreme Court) is already hearing a separate case about whether Barcelona City Hall has the power to take away licenses on tourist rentals.

More cases are on their way through the courts, both in Spain and in Europe.

The Patronal – that’s like the trade organization representing the industry – has promised plenty of new lawsuits.

And we’ll see where we end up.

Will banning AirBnb solve Barcelona’s housing crisis?

Mayor Collboni claims this is just the first part of a plan he has to end Barcelona’s housing crisis.

Will it work?

I doubt it.

I’d like to see the other parts of his plan, because this bit seems like it might not change everybody’s lives overnight. Housing is really expensive these days. And there are only about 10,000 licenses for tourist rentals in the whole city.

It’s a drop in the bucket, in other words.

As I wrote in my recent piece on the Golden Visa, net migration to Barcelona is about 40,000 people per year. New construction, on the other hand, is between 1000 and 2000 new flats.

Basic economics would suggest that if demand for something is increasing 20 times faster than supply, shit’s gonna get weird. And it has: from the squatters in flats and commercial spaces around the city to the the “startups” that have in recent years proposed renting out sleeping pods or spaces to sleep in your car, the housing problem is only getting worse.

A lot of the new arrivals are immigrants from other countries, and from what I’ve read, their living conditions can be pretty dismal. Meanwhile, the “locals” are often finding themselves priced out of the city, and moving to smaller towns nearby.

(Currently, the biggest immigrant group in Barcelona is Italians. Which seems plausible, but I wouldn’t necessarily have guessed it. In any case, counting immigrants is tricky for various reasons: some may not be registered, some have multiple nationalities, others get Spanish nationality and no longer figure as “foreign”, etc.)

There are also students, digital nomads and long-term tourists who don’t make the official count.

All this to say, it’s complicated.

Barcelona’s illegal hostels

When Morena and I moved here, in 2018, we rented a tiny one-bedroom flat in Barceloneta for 750€ a month. Since we had a “temporary” 11-month contract, that quickly became 800€. Now the averages around that area are 1200€ or more.

It’s only been 6 years. That’s a big increase.

And I’d love for the government to do something about it. I just don’t know what.

(As a foreign person – or perhaps immigrant – myself, who spent many years moving between cheap rentals, I know how insulting it is looking through real estate ads for something I could maybe afford, at a stretch, and then to get rejected by the landlords for undisclosed reasons. I doubt most people in the government have had that experience. Also, it’s worth mentioning that the average rental costs over 1,136€ a month, whereas the average salary for huge parts of the population is around 1100 to 1300€. That means that it’s not only impossible to rent for one person with an average salary, but probably impossible for two.)

Getting back to AirBnb-type rentals, there’s also a question of whether or not a lot of them are legal to begin with. The 10,000 licenses are out there – but how many people are renting out flats by days or weeks without licenses?

Another article in La Vanguardia recently reported on the phenomenon of “clandestine hostels” in which mafias rent apartments (presenting false documentation to the landlords) and then rent out the rooms on Booking.com. The owners are the ones who are officially responsible, according to the law – but they also can’t just kick out their fake tenants without a years-long legal process.

This plan to eliminate licenses for people running tourist rentals may just get rid of the people who are trying to do everything by the books – the shady under-the-table types will probably come out just fine.

Also, I have a fair amount of skepticism when the government says they’ll do something in four years. The next municipal election is in just three years – and a lot can happen in the meantime.

Philosophy, housing, and “fun”

A gentleman named Marko over on my donation page says…

I really like your podcast and blog. I like your sense of humor, your insights and that you invest some time into thinking and research before forming an opinion. That is a rare thing today. Here is my modest contribution to your online empire. All the best!

Marko.

Thanks a lot, Marko! And to all my other donors, around the world: I appreciate you.

I actually do quite a bit of research and fact-checking to write these articles, and I also try to be aware of the difference between facts and opinions. So this article, for example, is about a larger question of whether or not the state “should” be telling people what they can or can’t do with their private property.

That sounds like the kind of philosophical question I get a bit tired just thinking about, because my brain will insist that I deal with things like “What is private property?” and “What does should even mean, really?” in the process, and I don’t have time for all that. I’d rather go for a walk, and let you, the audience, decide for yourselves.

Meanwhile, a publication in Andalucía called Sur in English says that there are nearly 4 million unoccupied houses in Spain – at the same time, the Bank of Spain estimates that 600,000 new homes are needed to meet demand.

There’s been some talk over the years of just making people rent out their second homes long-term… but I’m not sure if anything has come of it. And it’s Saturday night.

Reading through some tax code right now to find out doesn’t sound like much fun. And you know me: Mr Chorizo, whose name is practically synonymous with “fun”.

So I’m gonna head out. It’s San Juan this weekend, and the kids (for reasons involving pagan history, probably) are lighting fireworks outside my window.

Have a good one, y’all.

Yours,

Daniel AKA Mr Chorizo.

P.S. If you want someone to tell you what to think, it’s not hard to find these days. Seems like most of the non-fiction books written in the last several years contain ample amounts of ideological scolding, no matter what they’re about… I’ve recently just given up and gone back to reading sci-fi.

P.P.S. I just deleted multiple instances of the word “meanwhile” in this article. Good writing doesn’t exist, only good editing. And unfortunately I’m both writer and editor here, so you’re going to have to deal with my occasional overuse of adverbs and run-on lists which I end with an unsatisfying “etc”.

P.P.P.S. Okay, I couldn’t live with myself for writing “for reasons involving pagan history, probably” up there without actually looking into it. Now I find out that we’re celebrating Saint John the Baptist, who according to tradition ate a diet of locusts and wild honey, and was also Jesus’ cousin? I had no idea! If you ever go to the Prado (for example) and see a painting in which someone is holding up a decapitated head on a platter, that’s probably John the Baptist. (The head, I mean, is probably the head of John the Baptist.) Also, the fireworks come from pagan history, probably. So there.

P.P.P.P.S. For much more, check out my classic article on gentrification in Madrid, my newer one about buying a flat in Spain, and an homage to my glamorous Clot / Sant Martí neighborhood. Have fun!