How to rent my flat in Barcelona

What can we do to improve the situation? How to rent my flat in Barcelona successfully?

In Barcelona, the rental market is large and ultra-mega-atomised, both in terms of the number of real estate agencies that operate it and the ownership of the properties that comprise it. For this reason, its behaviour is so complicated to monitor, modulate and consume. Faced with this jungle of supply and demand, here are some tips to help you solve the big question that every property owner is asking nowadays: how to rent my flat in Barcelona?

How many rents are we talking about?

In the city of Barcelona, around 50,000 rental contracts were formalised in 2017.

On the day I am writing this article, there are some 11,000 properties advertised on Idealista. If we eliminate the duplicate ads, we could estimate that some 10,000 unique homes are currently advertised for rent.

Monapart Barcelona is an aspirational rental agency, but as of today our market share is 0.12%, which on the one hand is good news, because we have a lot of room for growth, but on the other hand is bad news, because our ability to influence is minimal. Nevertheless, we have a clear idea of what a properly operated rental market should look like in order to achieve the full satisfaction of all its participants.

Requirements for renting a flat as a landlord in Barcelona

Classification of the rental market

"I want to rent my flat in Barcelona but I don't know where to start".is the main stumbling block that hangs over every landlord's head. Based on the following factors that affect the performance of a property in the market, we outline a possible classification of the rental market that will help you to understand where your flat is located in such a market:

By duration of the contract: Long-term, seasonal, tourist rental.

By area.

By use: family with children, couple, flat to share...

By attributes: views, size, distribution, building, terrace, common areas...

By performance, distinguishing between two types:

• Soft: those that can be modified with a small investment, such as household appliances or furniture.
• Hard: those that require more investment, such as modifying finishes, air conditioning or even the layout.

Bearing in mind that Monapart operates primarily in the long-term residential market.In other words, the most important thing for our clients is the relationship and balance between the factors of area, use, attributes and features, which ultimately determine the optimum price and, therefore, the profitability of the property for its owner.

In prime housing, it is the relationship and balance between the factors of area, use, attributes and performance that is relevant to the profitability of the rental for the landlord and that ultimately determines the optimal price.

Difference between attributes and performance

This distinction, of Monapart's own making, helps us to understand what factors have an impact on valuation, time to market, consistency between the property and the type of tenant desired or profitability. It is clear that we cannot intervene on the attributes. On the other hand, modifying or improving performance will help us to find the optimal balance between the desired rent, use and length of the contract. At this point, the landlord is already starting to say "I'm starting to understand how to rent my flat in Barcelona..."..

What can agents do to better advise homeowners who are part of the long-term residential market?

• Accurate assessmentby providing market data and our experience. In this way we will be able to determine the right price so that the property is on the market for as little time as possible, as every month lost is an irrecoverable loss. To achieve this objective it is necessary to properly analyse the mix of area, use, attributes and features of the property that we want to place on the market.
• Provide appropriate advice to the owner on how to adapt and present the flat. There are homes that age badly (aesthetically) and appliances and installations lose functionality over time. It is necessary to invest in them in order to update the features. We cannot pretend to rent the same flat from 15 years ago at a higher price without updating it properly. It is not a question of renting a property at a lower price because the features are obsolete, but of investing in that property to adapt it to the demands of the current market. Read this post about How to refurbish a flat to rent it out.
• Do not give the owner false hopes nor participate in wishful thinking. There are many agents who overprice a property in order to attract product and seduce the owner client. There are those who agree to put the property at the price that the owner wants ("I'm going to rent my flat in Barcelona and live on rents forever".In any case, we don't know how they got to such a price) without valuing their professional opinion. If we were doctors instead of agents... we would be sick of killing patients! In these situations, wouldn't it be better and more ethical to refuse the landlord who wants to rent your flat at a price that we know is unattainable? And if we have doubts, wouldn't it be better to offer a price strategy that allows us to start with the highest aspiration and correct downwards until the demand (which is very intelligent) pulls? And for those agents who overprice to attract clients, are you sure you are not wasting your time while playing the dangerous game of false expectations?
• Put good quality advertisements on real estate portals (as obvious as it is rare): good photos and accurate and complete information about the property.
• Reply leads, all of them! Not a single request for information via call or email should go unanswered. There are many agents who do not respond... I understand that sometimes it is difficult to respond to the 50 leads we may receive on a Monday morning for a rental flat and I don't think we are obliged to respond to all of them by phone. The least we can do is to send an e-mail with additional information, such as the conditions of the rental contract. That will allow the user to decide whether or not to arrange a visit and for us to filter more and work in an optimised way, so that nobody wastes time. A win-win total.

It is not a question of renting a property at a lower price because the services are obsolete, but of investing in that property to bring it up to the requirements of today's market.

Real estate agents we do not have the capacity to regulate prices, nor to increase the available housing stock, but we do have the ability to we have the capacity to make the experience of people looking for rental housing a little more pleasant and transparent. We can also help to educate private homeowners (who are the majority) to increase the quality of housing (because for a long time only the price has increased).

At Monapart we have many more ideas on how to improve the residential rental market, but to implement them we would need more market share and probably an investor to help us create the necessary tools. What we currently have is a high quality rental management servicebut we want more! If I am lucky enough to be read by potential customers (so that we can increase share) and/or investors (to develop new concepts): eduard@monapart.com.

Real estate agents do not have the power to regulate prices or increase the available housing stock, but we do have some leeway to make the experience of people looking for rental housing a little more pleasant and transparent.