When my expat friend Vee started looking for an apartment in Barcelona back in January of this year, she did not envision a 9-month ordeal. After replying to hundreds of ads on Idealista and barely getting responses to 1 percent of her messages, Vee started lamenting about it to friends, acquaintances, coworkers – even random strangers.
The Catalan among them assured her that they were facing similar predicaments, in other words, she was not dealing with discrimination. Her Spanish bank clerk went as far as to call the landlords and property agencies a “mafia”, while my closest Catalan buddy noted that one must have relatives in the city to be able to rent in Barcelona in this day and age. ]
After a near emotional burnout from the search, Vee solicited the help of two agencies and finally managed to secure a very affordable modern apartment – unfurnished, without any appliances, with a broken front door lock and around the corner from a place where a few ladies of the night practised their trade.
In Barcelona, housing demand far outstrips supply, but that’s the slim end of the wedge.
One long-term expat resident of Barcelona shared with me that more than 300 people apply for a single rental property. Hence, the difficulty in finding anywhere to live. However, the excessive demand is only part of the headache.
Here are just a few factors that make the process a practical joke:
Viewings and communication require psychic abilities
Looking for a rental via a listings website like Idealista or Badi guarantees you will have to send a lot of messages to get a reply. You must reply as soon as an ad goes live. If and when you do manage to get a response from a landlord, do not expect swift or coherent communication. One person kept sending Vee cryptic one-word replies that did not lead to a viewing. Then, once a viewing gets arranged, owners might – and will – cancel or reschedule at the last minute.
Is that convenient? Do you have commitments?Who cares?
This is Catalonia, not Germany.
Living conditions can be outrageous
Every single expat I’ve met used to gush about living in an Art Nouveau apartment block at some point in their early days in Barcelona. Oh, the ornate facades! The lofty ceilings! The huge wood-shuttered doors! The intricate tiled floors!
Yes, it would have been so romantic if these buildings weren’t mouldy, rusty, and inconveniently old-fashioned.
First off, the lack of modern PVC windows guarantees you drafty rooms and zero sound-proofing during the myriad annual fiestas. Do you enjoy sleeping after midnight? Forget about it. When the nation celebrates you had better join in or buy earplugs. In the absence of public holidays, the thin walls allow you to satisfy your thirst for gossip by eavesdropping on your neighbours’ fights.
Then there is the hilarious situation with the bathrooms which in these old buildings always occupy bizarre parts of the house. My friend’s toilet was on the terrace, an arm’s length across from the kitchen. In my own apartment, the bathroom faces the communal stairs and its big, rickety, single-pane window allows anyone outside to hear everything that’s happening inside.
By far the worst thing, however, is not the architectural quirkiness but the indoor temperature. Many apartments lack air-conditioning and proper central heating. Be prepared to broil in summer and freeze to the bone in winter. Some period properties are beautifully renovated and yet many of them lack adequate heating. I’ve stayed in in renovated buildings where, despite all mod cons, central heating and properly insulated windows were missing.
Expect the most unprofessional landlords in Europe
Having rented in Bulgaria and the United Kingdom over the past two decades, I have only ever dealt with landlords who did not just maintain their properties in good condition but were bound by local laws to fix anything that broke and to observe safety regulations. By comparison, Catalan landlords could not care less. One landlady never bothered to fix the damaged curtain rail in my bedroom, nor the lamp canopy that turned to dust in two years – both damages were due to wear and tear.
At the same time, Vee spent 18 months living in a flat with a ceiling that kept crumbling – paint flaking off daily. Despite the fact that Vee kept the owner informed about the situation, the latter never bothered to look into the fact that the roof of her top-floor apartment was damaged and disintegrating.
Expect unreasonable rents
Perhaps, all of the above would be tolerable if prices reflected the poor quality of rentals. You get what you pay for, right?
However, in the last few years alone rents have doubled.
At the end of the pandemic the going rate for a modest two-bedroom apartment in a calm suburb like La Teixonera cost about 800 euros per month. Today, a similar property in the same area costs in the region of 1,500 euros. Centrally located and fully renovated properties with all modern cons command prices of between 2,000 to 15,000 euros per month.
Renting in the suburbs
If you’re thinking of renting in Barcelona, perhaps you can give the Catalan a break from the much disliked tourists, nomads and expats and look for a home outside of the city.
The two towns that have merged with the metropolitan area, namely Badalona and Hospitalet, offer more modern digs even though prices there have also gone up and certain areas are quite dodgy. However, there are still many smaller towns in the region offering a better quality of life along with better quality apartments. Besides, you can commute via public transport to Barcelona for as little as 22 euros a month.
If, however, work or other commitments dictate that you rent in Barcelona, here are a few ways to make the process smoother ….
Friendly advice
Hire an agency. Real estate agents will offer you properties you won’t see in the ads. This will save you the mind-numbing tedium of replying to countless listings, a process that resembles online dating in its bitter, desperate futility.
Read rental contracts carefully. If you do not speak the language, consult someone who does. There might be clauses that would be considered ludicrous elsewhere in Europe. For example, one landlord asked my friend to cover the cost of any damages to the boiler.
Use your network. Ask friends, co-workers, language buddies, the third cousin of your teacher’s best friend. Don’t be shy about looking high and low. Be prepared to spend a few grand a month for quality.
Consider renting a modern build property in the suburbs or look into high-end, fully renovated period buildings. The more you pay, the more bang you get for your euros.
Last but not least, practise mindfulness. No, I am not being sarcastic. Calm down and accept that you have chosen the worst place to rent in all of Europe. You will need that ability to calm down when you finally move into your new rented home after months of searching and it turns out to be nothing like you thought it would be.
Welcome to Barcelona!
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Read more about renting in Europe here in Dispatches‘ archives.
Teodora Gaydarova
For 15 years Teodora Gaydarova has been covering culture, travel, hospitality and other beats for different publications and global brands. A Bulgarian by birth, she has lived all over the United Kingdom and parts of Spain, and she writes about the experience of navigating life across different countries and cultures on her blog, The Local Insider.
