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Housing Malaga named Spanish capital with lowest supply of affordable rental housingOnly 9% of two-bedroom flats are within reach for average earners as market prices soar to €1,245 - well above the 'reasonable' €845 limit
Málaga
Thursday, 12 February 2026, 16:35
Malaga has officially become the most challenging city in Spain for renters, with a staggering 91 per cent of its two-bedroom apartments now priced beyond the reach of the average local salary.
A new study by real estate portal Idealista, cross-referencing National Statistics Institute (INE) data for early 2026, reveals a deepening chasm between local wages and market demands.
While the Bank of Spain recommends that households spend no more than 30 per cent of their income on housing, the reality for Malaga residents is increasingly grim.
For a typical Malaga household, a "reasonable" rent based on the 30 per cent threshold would be 845 euros per month. However, the current median market price for a standard two-bedroom flat has hit 1,245 euros - a deficit of 400 euros every month.
This disparity makes Malaga the Spanish capital with the lowest availability of affordable rents, according to a study published by the real estate portal Idealista, which combines its own data and that of the national institute of statistics (INE).
The report concludes that in Spain, 68 per cent of the current supply of two-bedroom rental apartments is priced above a reasonable threshold. This means they are not affordable for a middle-income family that does not allocate more than 30 per cent of their income to rent: they should pay a maximum of 805 euros per month, whereas the median price of a two-bedroom apartment in the fourth quarter of 2025 was 1,088 euros per month.
The scarcity of these reasonable rents is particularly striking in three cities: Malaga, Valencia and Palma. In Malaga, only nine per cent of two-bedroom flats are economically suitable for a family with an average income in the city, while in Palma and Valencia it stands at eleven per cent.
Next come Madrid and Alicante with 16 per cent of flats priced below the reasonable limit, Barcelona (18 per cent), Segovia (24 per cent) and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (28 per cent).
Ninth place goes to the city of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, where the average income would be enough to rent 32 per cent of the properties, followed by Salamanca with 33 per cent. With percentages below 50 per cent are the cities of Bilbao (35), Seville (36), San Sebastian (39), Cadiz (41) and Vitoria (47).
At the other end of the spectrum are Ciudad Real, where 97 per cent of two-bedroom flats would be affordable for a middle-income family in the city. They are followed by the cities of Melilla (91), Palencia (90), Zamora (90) and Jaén (88).
What is a reasonable price?
Although the financial consensus advises that a family should not spend more than 30 per cent of its income on rent, incomes are not homogeneous in all Spanish capitals, so the limit of this reasonable rent varies from one to another. Idealista data has used the income data per household published by the INE for each provincial capital, and with this figure has calculated the maximum rent that could be paid in each of them.
Market prices
According to INE data, Spanish households are made up of 2.4 people on average, so a two-bedroom flat would be the minimum unit in which a family should live. In this case, flats that meet this characteristic have a current market price of 1,794 euros per month in Barcelona.
This is followed by 1,650 euros in Madrid, 1,609 euros in Palma, 1,351 euros in Valencia and 1,350 euros in San Sebastian. Also above 1,000 euros are Segovia (1,214 euros), Bilbao (1,190 euros), Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (1,154 euros), Ceuta (1,141 euros), Alicante (1,098 euros) and Santa Cruz de Tenerife (1,095 euros). At the bottom, on the other hand, we find Jaén, where a 2-bedroom flat currently costs 599 euros per month.
In terms of the differences between the reasonable price and the market price, Barcelona stands out from the rest, as the market rent is 694 euros more expensive than the reasonable price. This is followed by the differences in Palma (563 euros more expensive), Madrid (484 euros), Valencia (411 euros), Malaga (400 euros), Segovia (326 euros), Alicante (287 euros) and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (242 euros).
In 39 capitals, the median price of a two-bedroom flat is below the reasonable rent. In Ciudad Real the market rent is 316 euros cheaper than the reasonable rent, followed by Melilla (293 euros cheaper), Jaén (279 euros), Palencia (232 euros) and Lleida (213 euros).