Submission Statement: Madrid and Barcelona are encountering acute housing crises alongside the rest of metropolitan Spain, and the broader (particularly urban) Western world. Their differing policies are worth debating.
In broad strokes:
* Both cities appear to be pursuing construction of new units, though Madrid more ambitiously so than Barcelona.
* Barcelona is emphasizing more regulation, affordable housing construction. Barcelona also plans to build 200,000 new homes over the next 20 years, with at most 70,000 in the city itself.
* Barcelona is specifically targeting short term rentals, including a ban on AirBnB that will go into effect in 2028. Other policies including purchasing land for public and affordable housing, and making existing subsidized housing permanent. They aim to build 3,000 more affordable units by 2027, and begin 10,000 more in they following municipal term. They seek to increase the current share of public housing from 6% to 15% by 2045.
* Catalonia (Barcelona’s region) has also implemented Spain’s 2023 housing law on the regional level, capping rent increases. The conservative-controlled Madrid has not implemented the policy.
* Madrid is emphasizing supply, seeking to building 280,000 to 300,000 new homes in the region over the next 15 years, with 200,000 in the City itself.
* The article states that Barcelona is the only major Spanish city where rents are falling, down 1.5% between February 2025 and February 2026, while rents increased by 7.8% nationwide.
I think it’s important to note that all of this has occurred within the past several years — I don’t really think it’s safe to say that Catalonia/Barcelona’s strategy is the more effective one (especially in the long term) with two years of data. I’d be interested to hear the input of our Spanish users for more context.
Fresh-Champion-1074 on
I willing to bet that Madrid building more will be more successful
Francisco-De-Miranda on
Madrid supremacy will continue
ldn6 on
Proving my belief that Madrid is by far the better city compared to Barcelona.
hibikir_40k on
While Madrid has its issues, and a lot of neighborhoods that right now could be redeveloped to far more density, at least their improvement plans are not completely detached from economic reality.
The bigger fixes, which would include doing things like increasing property taxes (IBI) to the moon, while cutting the taxes paid on sale of properties, as to make the market liquid, and speculation less valuable, are just harder, because everyone pays IBI.
Given that Spain’s limits for investment in tax-advantaged form are minuscule (like 1000 euros a year), and the wealth taxes that in some regions hit under a million euros, along with the very low IBI and very cheap mortgages, basically nobody invests in the stock market, and everyone that has significant savings it’s all apartments. My elderly aunt, a school teacher married to a carpenter, is sitting on 6 properties. The building I grew up in, all 3 or 4 bedroom apartments, sized for families, is now owned mostly by single people that inherited, and want to keep the investment growing. Of course there’s a housing problem!
Savard-Lafleur on
building more is the only way out lol. rent control never works and just makes it harder for people to find a place. hope they focus on supply instead of just more rules tbh
6 Comments
Submission Statement: Madrid and Barcelona are encountering acute housing crises alongside the rest of metropolitan Spain, and the broader (particularly urban) Western world. Their differing policies are worth debating.
In broad strokes:
* Both cities appear to be pursuing construction of new units, though Madrid more ambitiously so than Barcelona.
* Barcelona is emphasizing more regulation, affordable housing construction. Barcelona also plans to build 200,000 new homes over the next 20 years, with at most 70,000 in the city itself.
* Barcelona is specifically targeting short term rentals, including a ban on AirBnB that will go into effect in 2028. Other policies including purchasing land for public and affordable housing, and making existing subsidized housing permanent. They aim to build 3,000 more affordable units by 2027, and begin 10,000 more in they following municipal term. They seek to increase the current share of public housing from 6% to 15% by 2045.
* Catalonia (Barcelona’s region) has also implemented Spain’s 2023 housing law on the regional level, capping rent increases. The conservative-controlled Madrid has not implemented the policy.
* Madrid is emphasizing supply, seeking to building 280,000 to 300,000 new homes in the region over the next 15 years, with 200,000 in the City itself.
* The article states that Barcelona is the only major Spanish city where rents are falling, down 1.5% between February 2025 and February 2026, while rents increased by 7.8% nationwide.
I think it’s important to note that all of this has occurred within the past several years — I don’t really think it’s safe to say that Catalonia/Barcelona’s strategy is the more effective one (especially in the long term) with two years of data. I’d be interested to hear the input of our Spanish users for more context.
I willing to bet that Madrid building more will be more successful
Madrid supremacy will continue
Proving my belief that Madrid is by far the better city compared to Barcelona.
While Madrid has its issues, and a lot of neighborhoods that right now could be redeveloped to far more density, at least their improvement plans are not completely detached from economic reality.
The bigger fixes, which would include doing things like increasing property taxes (IBI) to the moon, while cutting the taxes paid on sale of properties, as to make the market liquid, and speculation less valuable, are just harder, because everyone pays IBI.
Given that Spain’s limits for investment in tax-advantaged form are minuscule (like 1000 euros a year), and the wealth taxes that in some regions hit under a million euros, along with the very low IBI and very cheap mortgages, basically nobody invests in the stock market, and everyone that has significant savings it’s all apartments. My elderly aunt, a school teacher married to a carpenter, is sitting on 6 properties. The building I grew up in, all 3 or 4 bedroom apartments, sized for families, is now owned mostly by single people that inherited, and want to keep the investment growing. Of course there’s a housing problem!
building more is the only way out lol. rent control never works and just makes it harder for people to find a place. hope they focus on supply instead of just more rules tbh