Multi-home landlords in Spain charge 7.1% more rent but explain 18% of the rise

Who pays more

A study by the EsadeEcPol think tank, written by Jorge Galindo, finds that tenants of owners with several rental flats pay more than tenants of single-property landlords. On average, tenants of large landlords paid 7.1% more in 2023 for a flat with the same characteristics. The analysis draws on rental homes declared for income tax in Spain's common-regime regions between 2019 and 2023, covering about 790,000 observations from microdata held by the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Tax Agency. The report is limited to individual owners and leaves out property companies and public housing. The effect is almost three times larger in Madrid than in Barcelona.

How the gap grew

Comparing homes in the same census section, the difference between multi-home and single-home landlords rose from 0.8% in 2019 to 3.5% in 2023. The gap grows with portfolio size. For comparable homes between 2019 and 2023, rents rose 1.3% more for landlords with two homes, 2% more with three, 3.4% more with four and 4.5% more with five or more, compared with single-home landlords. Tracking the same dwellings over time, prices under multi-home owners rose between 3.1% and 4.0% more than under single-home owners. The largest difference appears at contract renewal, when multi-home landlords raised rents by 5.2% on average against 3.8% for single-home landlords.

Why renewals differ

The report links most of the gap to renewals. Large owners update prices sooner and take a less cautious approach to choosing tenants, while small owners may prefer stability and accept smaller increases. Galindo summed up the mechanism this way.

Multi-landlords adjust prices earlier or select tenants willing to pay more.

Professional management also gives multi-home landlords a greater capacity to renew their contracts, according to the study.

A small share of the rise

The study concludes that the rise in rents mostly reflects a general shortage of supply set against growing demand, not an accumulation of homes by one owner in one area. Landlords who concentrate their portfolio in a single census section charge less than comparable single-home landlords, and the premium concentrates in large, geographically spread portfolios. Multi-home landlords account for 1.6 of the 8.8 percentage points by which average rents rose between 2019 and 2023, or 18% of the increase. EsadeEcPol does not attribute that contribution to a larger share of such owners in the rental stock. El Mundo cites Idealista data showing available rental supply down by up to 44% since 2018.

The political debate

Defenders of rent intervention, including the governing coalition parties PSOE and Sumar, have argued that large landlords move the market by setting rents that smaller owners follow. The study does not support that claim. The debate runs alongside protests at Madrid's Puerta del Sol, where tents first went up on the night of Saturday 26 September after the eviction of the late Maricarmen Abascal. Since then the Cortes have been dissolved and elections called, and a general strike has been called for the first time in 14 years.