There are those who are looking for an apartment and those who are looking for a girlfriend.
Literally.
For a year now, profiles of users have proliferated on social networks like Tinder who, while looking for the love of their life, also take the opportunity to find the apartment of their dreams.
According to company data, mentions of searching for an apartment in the biography have increased by 20% in the last year.
This phenomenon doesn't only happen on Tinder.
“Are you looking for a roommate in Madrid?
We are two gorgeous girls looking for roommates to share.
We will make croquettes for you and we will go on Sundays to try tortillas,” reads a reel on TikTok that has 84,800 views.
With increasing frequency, among the hundreds of
reels
about plans, restaurants and cafes to visit in Madrid, more and more videos appear in which, on a roll of photos, people search for the ideal roommate.
On TikTok, more and more 'bios' start more or less like this: “Hello, I'm Violeta and I'm looking for an apartment in Madrid to move in ASAP [as soon as possible, for its acronym in English]”, you can read while you scroll through the photos of a user's biography.
“I'm 23 years old and I'm very nice and happy,” adds Violeta, for whom the search for a boyfriend pales before the real challenge of her life: finding a place to live.
On the other hand, there is no shortage of those who, already having an apartment, are looking for a companion: “We have a room available in my apartment in Madrid.
Four rooms, central heating, furnished.
To enter January,” reads the description of Antonio's video.
If one knew of the other's existence, Violeta and Antonio, in fact, could be a
perfect
match .
Chance has these things.
Content creator Artelle Alava explains that the question that is most repeated in the comments of her videos is how to find an apartment in Madrid.
She adds that, although platforms such as Pisos.com, Idealista, Fotocasa or Sportahome are the most popular, lately people are also increasingly turning to social networks such as TikTok, Tinder or Bumble to find a home.
For Cecilia Bizzotto, sociologist and spokesperson for JOYClub in Spain, this has a reason: “We have virtualized all human relationships.”
Bizzotto assures that “this type of apps have made social relationships easier for many people, giving them spaces where they feel more comfortable and meet new people.
That's why more and more apps appear to make friends, flirt or even look for roommates."
In JOYClub, which is defined as a social network where “discover eroticism and pleasure,” recently “a group of women created a group to look for houses to travel around Spain doing a kind of apartment exchange,” says Bizzotto.
In the same way that for some time LinkedIn, the work network par excellence, has been used to flirt, dating apps are used to find a home.
Alba Durán, the Marketing Director at Bumble Spain, an app to find love or friendship, has also observed this trend: “We realized that people used the Bumble app for things that went beyond finding a relationship. couple reading their biographies, where they increasingly specified, for example, that they were looking for an apartment or that they had just moved and wanted to meet friends.”
The app decided to take action on the matter.
“In 2016 we created Bumble BFF mode within the app to give people a unique space dedicated to finding friends.
This modality was a success, so in 2023 we launched the independent application Bumble For Friends, where you can meet new people with common interests such as finding a flat together,'' says Durán.
For its part, Tinder clarifies that, although these cases may occur, the purpose of its application is still to create romantic connections.
“Although companionship, friendship and
situationships
are currently the three most sought-after things by singles aged 18 to 25, 64% of all users say that what they are looking for is the emotional stimulation that a loving relationship provides,” they specify from Tinder.
OBS Business School professor and Digital Strategy expert at Gartner, Martín Piqueras, remembers: “We are creatures of habit.”
And he gives an example: “When we have two map apps on our mobile, in the end we end up using only one of them.”
This is what makes more and more users look for everything in a single app where they feel comfortable.
This ends up serving to solve all problems, from finding a partner to finding an apartment.
“The trend is that in the future we will have more and more superapps: applications where you can make a Bizum, sell products, flirt or chat, all in the same environment,” explains Piqueras.
This is, on the other hand, the penultimate consequence of the fact that in large cities like Madrid no one is clear that finding true love is much more difficult than finding a home to live in.