La situación del mercado inmobiliario en las Islas condena a muchos ciudadanos a optar por un piso compartido. Imagen de unos ciudadanos consultando una inmobiliaria en Maó, Menorca. | Gemma Andreu

The room rental business is growing exponentially in view of the impossibility of renting a home. The high price of rents has led many citizens to resign themselves to having to share a flat and reduce their life to a room in the house while sharing the rest of the common spaces. The former director general of Habitatge and current advisor to Pedro Sánchez on housing, Eduardo Robsy, has carried out a study on the supply of flats for rent and the conclusion is that in Palma, Eivissa and other parts of the Islands, renting rooms already accounts for 25% of the total number of ads on real estate portals.

The study gives an approximation of the price paid for these rooms. The most reliable data are from Palma, where there is a greater volume of shared housing offers. The average price per room is 570 euros per month, which is higher than in Madrid, where they cost 559 euros on average. In other words, renting a room in Palma costs on average more than paying the mortgage on a whole flat in 10 autonomous communities, according to data from the Property Registrars.

The data is less conclusive in other areas of the Balearic Islands because the volume of rooms is lower, but according to the statistics of Pedro Sánchez's advisor, the average price of room rental ads is 579 euros in Calvià and 532 in Llucmajor. The most outrageous price for rent is in Ibiza. In the municipality of Santa Eulària alone, the seven existing shared rooms are offered at an average of 1,849 euros each, and in Ibiza town the price is 1,085 euros per room.

In the case of the Balearic Islands, the impossibility of finding affordable housing has been pushing the renting of rooms for years, but Robsy points out that this phenomenon, which has now become normalised in the Islands, has been developing for years in cities such as Barcelona, with a price level similar to that of the Balearics, where the number of offers for renting rooms equals the number of offers of flats for renting the whole house. Robsy considers that the extension of this new type of rental, which will continue to grow until the rise in rental prices stabilises, makes it necessary to consider the need for specific minimum legislation for this type of rental to provide more security for those who rent.

For example, in the case of the bono joven de alquiler, in the Balearic Islands there are no subsidies for those who rent rooms, they can only get access if they offer the entire flat. He also believes that this minimum regulation should provide a series of guarantees for tenants against landlords who abuse their position and create enormous legal uncertainty.