The next month of July will be the first in which the flats and apartments of the city can’t be rented to tourists as holiday rentals
. This is a pioneering measure in Spain that has been activated after several studies and analyzes commissioned by the Balearic government have revealed that the offer of non-regulated tourist flats increased 50% between 2015 and 2017 until reaching 20,000 places sold in the city. These studies reflect that 48% of tourist rental flats are offered in periods of between seven and eight months, which vetoes possibilities for the entrance of long-term residential rental in the market.
According to data presented by the government team, the tourist rental offer has increased by 50 percent between 2012 and 2017 in Palma. Thus, the parallelism between the lack of rental housing throughout the year and the rise in prices due to the increase in demand for holiday homes has been highlighted.
Currently in the Balearic capital there is an offer in the market of some 11,000 tourist rental places, of which only 645 are licensed, all for single-family homes. Before the approval of the autonomic regulations in August of last year the places offered amounted to 20,000, but the high fines contemplated in the law caused the withdrawal of ads on the large platforms.
In Palma, only tourist rental will be allowed in single-family homes, isolated houses or villas, except for those located in protected rustic land, in the vicinity of the airport and in areas of non-residential use such as industrial estates. After the aforementioned zoning process, the government has decided to consider the city as a single zone and maintain the restriction of this practice in flats and apartments throughout the territory. The Balearic Islands Government imposed a fine of 300,000 euros on this platform in February for hosting advertising for up to twenty homes in Mallorca that do not have the compulsory license for the holiday rental.
The new standard has been collected internationally and has not been well received by companies in the sector who argue that the impact of this new situation is going to harm not only those who obtained income directly from holiday rental homes but also for all the complementary offer.
In this way, the Spanish Federation of Housing and Tourist Apartments goes further, and plans to take legal action against this prohibition in the Balearic capital. In the same line, the Association of Small and Medium-sized Trade of Mallorca (Pimeco), has agreed that the vacation rental “dynamised the local economy and trade by the purchases of tourists who will now disappear at least from the center and also because the entrance of tourist rentals stimulated the consumption “.
