Renting an apartment of 65 useful meters on Alonso Cano Street in the Madrid neighborhood of Ríos Rosas would have to cost about 1,080 euros, with a range of between 910 and 1,250, according to the Ministry of Housing and Urban Agenda.
That same property is offered on Idealista for 1,700 euros, 57% more expensive.
The recently launched State Reference System for Housing Rental Prices portrays a parallel world that does not fit with the current rental market.
We have compared 40 Idealista ads for Madrid and Barcelona with the ministry's indicative prices: all are offered more expensive on the portal, from 4% to 100%, more than double.
That is precisely what the Government has argued to defend that the system will reduce rents.
The 20 apartments in Madrid in the previous graph are advertisements chosen at random: we have compiled the most recent ones, published this Wednesday, in which the exact address appeared.
In all of them, the price offered on Idealista exceeds that of the reference index for that property.
On the portal the average price of the homes consulted reaches 1,125 euros per month, while the ministerial system barely reaches 800. The advertisements do not necessarily reflect the final cost at which the tenant signs the contract, since there may be discounts.
In a market where rents are rising uncontrollably, however, getting such discounts is very difficult.
In a couple of cases the difference is less than 100 euros, a mismatch close to 10%.
It is more common for the landlords' claims to far exceed the public figure: six of the offers ask for more than 500 euros above the official reference.
The ads visited offer rentals both in the center of the capital and outside the M-30.
Studies and four-bedroom apartments have been consulted, renovated and not updated since their construction.
For each home, the ministry offers a minimum and maximum reference price range, with differences of 125 euros for the most modest, and up to 340 for those with the highest income.
Similar situation in Barcelona
The Madrid pattern is repeated in the Catalan capital.
The twenty apartments that we have randomly searched on Idealista are on average 400 euros more expensive than the ministry's reference.
In Barcelona we find two especially tight cases: an apartment in the Vallcarca i els Penitents neighborhood and another in El Raval, which are rented for only about 50 euros more than what is established by the new public framework.
At the opposite extreme we find properties located in the Gracià and Eixample districts, where Idealista ads range from 600 to 800 euros above the guide prices.
The differences are smaller for other properties, located in Ciutat Vella or Sants.
A national index
The reference index is calculated from the address of the property or its cadastral reference, with which the most determining characteristics of the price, surface area and location of the home are known.
To take into account the particular conditions of the property, the index refines the final data with characteristics such as whether or not it has an elevator, doorman or common areas.
The ministry already announced last Tuesday in the presentation of the index that the cost of rentals is lower than the offer price of the advertisements on real estate portals.
And he gave some very striking examples, in which the difference even exceeded 100%.
That is to say, the owners are now asking for more than double what the index indicates.
Of the 40 cases analyzed, this has happened in three.
It is not a surprise that the price index is pointing downwards.
First, due to the nature of the calculation.
The Government has used the leasing data that the Tax Agency has from the latest income tax returns submitted by citizens, those for 2022, to see which contracts were in force.
The offers of the portals with which they are compared are published now, in February 2024. In addition, one of the potential purposes of the system is precisely to limit the price.
It could be used to impose a maximum price on rentals in those areas that the autonomous communities declare as having a stressed residential market.
For now, only Catalonia has taken that step.
If the planned schedule is met, 140 municipalities spread across its four provinces (although mostly in Barcelona) will begin rent control on March 13.
Cheap, medium and expensive apartments in each district
The prices of the reference system take as a starting point the information from the ministry, taken from the Treasury, on current rents.
In the center are the rental prices of each census section, and in particular three indicators: the average price per square meter in the area, and the low (25th centile) and high (75th centile) prices.
In the following table you can consult these prices for all districts of Spanish cities with more than 50,000 inhabitants.
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