Rent returns to Spain and reverts to pre-Covid-19 levels.

In Spain, renting is becoming popular again. In 2023, 15.4% of households will choose to rent their home at market price, and this is the same figure as in 2019, before the pandemic outbreak, when it fell below 15%, according to data extracted from the Living Conditions Study published by the National Institute of Statistics (INE).

The recovery in the rental market over the past four years follows a 2.4 percentage point increase in the rental share for families where an adult lives with children. This family type changed the homeownership rate from 70.3 percent to 61.6 percent. In addition, this family type has the highest share of rental housing, below market rate, to 7.5%. The share of this family type owning rental housing has increased by 4.4 percentage points over the past four years.

This group also has more difficulty finishing the month. According to the same statistics, 20.6% of families with one adult and one or more children say they have difficulty finishing the month, while another 20.6% say it is difficult, and only 9.1% say it is easy, which is the group with the most serious problems.

Homeownership declined in all housing types except "other families," whether or not there are children. In families of more than two adults with no dependent children, home ownership was nearly unchanged by 0.1 percentage points, while if there are dependent children, it increased by 2.8 percentage points.

Despite the recovery, renting remains a minority option for all types of Spanish families.

Young age and men are characteristics of renters in Spain. Men between the ages of 16 and 29 make up the group with the highest number of people who live in rented accommodation. This works for 49.5% of them, while 48% of women of the same age also choose to rent. In the older age group, renting is a more popular option for women between the ages of 30 and 44, with 29.9% of them renting, compared to 29.4% for men. This trend continues for the older population. 12.4% of men between the ages of 45 and 64 live in rented housing, while 15.1% of women of the same age do the same, and among men over 65, 4.4% live in rented housing, compared to 5.5% of women.