More and more young people seek emancipation. Search for an apartment, either for rent or to buy a home, it has generated an excess demand for housing to which the market cannot respond due to the lack of supply that exists. For some months this has become one of the great dilemmas of the sector, who have asked for reinforcements to be able to solve the shortage of land for the creation of houses. Now, for the same reason, a large number of young people seeking emancipation or those seeking to live alone, They have begun to opt for smaller flats and Madrid has a large part of these ‘mini-flats’, which has triggered this market in the last year.
According to the report carried out by the National Institute of Statistics (INE) called ‘Population and Housing Census 2021- Results on Households and Housing’, the number of homes it has only risen 2.5% in the last decade in Spain. Specifically, Madrid leads the list of small flats that are less than 30 square meters and also in those that are in the size range of between 30 and 45 square meters. 44,945 mini-flats in the capital are of the first categoryfollowed by Barcelona with 21,188 apartments. they follow him Malaga (10,568); Balearics (7,648) and the palms (5,892).
As for those that are in the range between 30 and 45 square meters, the capital also climbs to the pole and tops the list with 237,179 apartments. While Barcelona already decreases to 194,555 homes. In third place is Malaga with 41,771 flats of this size, followed by Las Palmas with 36,111, and in fifth place Santa Cruz de Tenerife with 33,679. In total, Madrid, between the two classifications made by the INE, It has more than 280,000 mini-flats that today are the focus of young people, foreigners, and investors.
Pisos.com spokesman and director of studies, Ferrán Font comments that the needs of the users are changing over time, but that the houses that are built are getting smaller and smaller: “They are no longer so many square meters, especially those that are more central,” he says. Although he specifies that the segment of small flats or these measures are not “very representative because they are so specific”, but that can be used for students or for people who are going to be emancipated, but not to develop a life project in the medium or long term.
According to data from the INE, in the last year the tendencies of Spaniards and the type of house they are looking for have changed. Now users want to have access to a single-person home: “Size 1 households are increasing because the living conditions of a person living alone are improving and because of the aging of the population,” said the general director of population statistics of the INE, Antonio Argueso. Although the use of houses of size 5 and more has also grown, mainly due to the foreign population that arrives in the country and those of size two decrease.
From Fotocasa, they also think that these types of smaller apartments or with fewer rooms are especially intended for the rental market. Currently the availability of apartments with between 1 and 2 rooms on the portal, represents 70% of the offer in Madrid and 60% in the case of Barcelona. “This is due to the fact that a good part of the rental market is led by young profiles, both students and couples who are going to live together and are looking for studios or apartments that do not have many square meters,” says the spokesperson and director of studios at Fotocasa. , Maria Matos.
The expert assures that cities like Madrid or Barcelona not only attract a large number of students, but they are also a pole of attraction for young people in search of job opportunities and apartments for rent with 2 rooms or less are the most demanded by these profiles. “In general, the square meter of small flats, both for sale and for rent, is usually more expensive than large flats (from 150 meters onwards) although in the total price computation, logically, large flats tend to be more expensive. higher”, concludes Matos, which explains why the excess demand for rent is mainly destined for these small apartments that mainly attract the youngest.