The housing crisis in Barcelona: rooms exceed 550 euros in all districts

"Hopelessness and frustration." These are the emotions that today define the search for a room in Barcelona. The same ones with which Darío Rivadeneira (42 years old) begins his days in his home, located in the El Carmel neighborhood, north of the Catalan city. Just yesterday morning he had to get up early to attend training to be a Cabify driver. «It's no longer useful to live far away; You travel an hour and a half to work and pay the same,” he laments. The reason? Finding a room in Barcelona for less than 550 is now impossible.

This is explained by the data from the latest Fotocasa report, which reveals a darkening scenario in which the average price of a room in Barcelona is 632 euros per month and that there is no longer any district below the 550-euro barrier. Nou Barris, the cheapest area, averages 576 euros, while Sarrià-Sant Gervasi leads with 675 euros on average.

Rivadeneira's story is more complex when he begins to recount the uphill struggle to find a room eight months ago to live in the Catalan capital where his brother lives. "I had an initial budget of 350, 400 euros," he recalls. However, the price barrier shattered their plans. Without a stable contract and the agencies demanded requirements that were impossible to assume. He was able to enter his current room in El Carmel because a contact of his brother sublet it to him.

He currently pays 550 euros for an old room with structural problems. "You have to endure," he says. Because "in the end you have nowhere to go, it's either that, or you're going to sleep in a tent on the street," he explains with resignation. He, like many, made the decision to look for a job other than the master's degree in international relations that he studied a few years ago in Spain because he did not find an opportunity.

While waiting for the nationality that he is processing, Rivadeneira answers the question of how he envisions his future in Barcelona: "I don't want this to be my life in the next eight years, nor to be at 50 years old sharing an apartment in which I don't like to live."

A few kilometers away, Sebastián de Laire (24 years old), a Chilean psychologist, shares these same feelings but this time from a different perspective: that of a master's student looking for a room in the city. De Laire arrived in April waiting to begin his studies at the Autonomous University of Barcelona in Human Resources but, as he says, it was a "dramatic" experience.

The apartment he had booked from his country was canceled the same day he landed in Spain, leaving him homeless. Desperation led him to accept a room in Les Corts for 550 euros per month.

Today, De Laire pays 530 euros plus expenses (about 580 in total) in Horta-Guinardó, where the official average is 581 euros. He works 25 hours a week as a waiter to earn 1,000 euros net, allocating just over half to housing. «I do 25 hours and earn 1,000 euros. So, more than 50% goes to rent, I can't save."

The problem has gone deep and impacted the dynamics of living on the outskirts of cities. The results of the report prove that this is no longer an alternative to escape from rental price inflation. The increases occur in 80% of the Catalan cities analyzed. Sant Cugat del Vallès surpasses the capital with an average of 706 euros per month. L'Hospitalet de Llobregat stands at 575 euros and Sabadell registers 474 euros.

"Living in Barcelona is impossible now, so people are migrating to other towns... but to what extent, what is the limit of that?" reflects De Laire.