According to the property website Idealista, the stock of properties to rent in the Balearics fell by 21% in the final quarter of 2022 when compared with the same quarter of 2021; in Palma, there was a decrease of 30%.
This drop is partly attributed to Spanish government policy. It introduced a two per cent limit to annual upward revisions of rents in March last year and has extended this by a further twelve months.
There is criticism of this limit from spokespeople for other property websites. Ferran Font, director of studies for Pisos.com, says that before the measure came into force, "rent updates were already much more moderate than inflation". "It is a more aesthetic than practical measure, which protects the tenant but leaves the owner a little more exposed to the elements because the price increase is limited but not the increase in expenses, which increase with inflation."
María Matos of Fotocasa believes that "if these types of interventionist measure remain in force, the rental market will be subject to great tensions by creating a greater imbalance between supply and demand". Ultimately, she argues, it will continue to raise prices and make access to rental housing even more difficult.
Idealista's Francisco Iñareta feels that the solution to renting "is to encourage owners to put their properties on the market" and for them "to receive tax incentives so that they do not shoulder the cost of the government's social measures".