High rents and the housing crisis have ended up at the center of attention across Europe - as mentioned - after the protests that exploded in Spain. The fuse that started the fire was the eviction of 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal from the house in Madrid where she had lived for 70 years: the company that owned the apartment had multiplied the rent, bringing it from 500 to 2650 euros. After the old woman's removal - with images of Maricarmen being taken away on a stretcher - an agreement was reached, but the woman died without ever returning to the house.
The housing crisis in the country has caused strong protests in several cities and even led to the fall of the Sanchez government and new elections at the end of November. In Spain the situation is actually complex: since 2016 rents have grown by 82.7% in Madrid and 94.9% in Barcelona, against a growth in wages of around 45%. In the capital in particular, the average rent reported by the Idealista online portal is 23.3 euros per square meter per month: a 100 square meter apartment costs 2,330 euros per month. And even buying a house has become prohibitive: in the first quarter of 2026, house prices increased by 12.9% on an annual basis, up to +13.5% for used houses.
However, the problem, although it exploded in Spain, does not concern only that country. According to Eurostat, in fact, in the second quarter of 2026, housing prices in the European Union increased by 4.7%, while rents grew by 3% compared to the second quarter of 2025. Furthermore, compared to the first quarter of 2026, housing costs increased by 1.2% and rents by 0.7%. Furthermore, again according to Eurostat, in 2025 compared to the previous 12 months, housing sales in the Union increased in most of the countries for which data are available.
And what about Italy? According to Eurostat, the market trend in our country is in line with that of the rest of the European Union. The residential sector, however, closed the third quarter of 2026 with a drop in prices of 1.1%, to an average of 2,031 euros per square meter. On an annual basis, the balance remains positive, with 3.3% more than in September 2025. On a monthly level, however, according to the Idealista portal, prices are remaining stable.
Going into detail on the data on rentals in Italy, Idealista underlines how the market has experienced some significant changes in the last ten years: in particular, the share of temporary announcements has exploded, which has gone from 1.6 to 31.4%, and at the same time the offer of long-term solutions has decreased by 34.8%. In the meantime, however, some changes can be seen by looking at the data of the large university cities: in Milan the prices of two-room and three-room apartments have fallen by 6%, in Rome however the price lists are stable while in Naples the costs are falling for all solutions.
The role of short-term rentals in the housing crisis is often debated. And in recent days the EU Energy Commissioner Dan Jorgensen presented the Commission's plan for affordable housing before the European Parliament, speaking precisely on this issue: "Short-term rentals, second homes and vacant properties are not the main cause" of the housing crisis in Europe but in many large cities "they contribute to this problem". The commissioner said the EU will continue to work on investment and supply, "to counter speculation and support the most vulnerable, as well as to reduce bureaucracy".
In September the Commission presented the Affordable Housing Act, the proposed regulation to try to combat the housing crisis. At the heart of the new legislation is the desire to give local authorities the possibility of defining an area under housing pressure, i.e. in which the selling prices of houses exceed eight times the annual disposable income per capita. In this case, local authorities will be able to introduce limits on rents for tourist rentals without incurring appeals for violation of internal market rules. A proposal which, however, did not find favor with many European governments and groups in the European Parliament.
The link between short-term rentals for tourists and the price of properties, however, does not always seem to be clear: for example in Lisbon in the last three years the number of apartments intended for the short-term rental market has decreased by 40% thanks to more rigorous criteria in the assignment of new licenses and the strengthening of controls on licenses already granted. However this has not been accompanied by a decline in the average house price in the capital: house prices in Portugal have increased by 16.5% year-on-year and Lisbon, in particular, has been indicated by the European Commission as one of the cities where real estate pressure is greatest. Rents in the Portuguese capital have increased by 103% over the last decade.
In this context, Italy could also move with some ad hoc measures: "A measure that could be studied, financial resources permitting, are incentives for the purchase of the first home for under-36s, the extension of the possibility of applying VAT on the sale and rental of homes carried out by real estate sales and management companies, the reduction of the VAT rate from 10 to 5% for the rental of residential buildings (obviously with the exception of luxury properties) and the assimilation of residential buildings rented by construction companies to instrumental properties, because today we have a distinction", said the Deputy Minister of Economy, Maurizio Leo, in recent days.
