Barcelona has seen a 32% fall in the purchase of entire residential buildings, according to city officials. In 2025, 149 buildings with more than 10 homes were acquired, down from 217 the year before.
The city council says speculative and investor demand has been reduced by housing rules introduced over the past two years. Housing Commissioner Joan Ramon Riera said these measures have lowered profitability expectations for people looking to make money from housing.
Those rules include caps on standard rental prices, approved in March 2024, and limits on seasonal rental prices, which came into force in December 2025. Riera also supports a law to ban speculative purchases, which is still awaiting approval from the Catalan Parliament. He said, “It is necessary because it will further protect the right to housing.”
For readers following housing policy across Catalonia, the city’s latest figures add to the wider debate on regulation and supply. See our news coverage for more local reporting.
A report from the Barcelona Metropolitan Housing Observatory says the rules have made renting a flat more accessible, even though prices remain out of reach for many families. Over two years, the gap between average household income and the average price of new rental contracts has narrowed.
In 2023, before the caps took effect, prices were 91.2 points above incomes. By 2025, that gap had fallen to 70.4. Carles Donat, co-director of the Observatory, said the aim is to ease the affordability crisis in the short term while longer-term measures, such as more social housing and public investment, are put in place.
The report also says that without the price caps, average rent in Barcelona would now be between €1,318.6 and €1,429.2 a month. Since the regulation came into force in the first quarter of 2024, the average price has fallen by 2.7% to €1,161. Seasonal rental contracts also fell by 53% in the fourth quarter of 2025 compared with the same period a year earlier.
