Barcelona Accommodation

In the summer you will find all the hotels full, as there are more tourists than beds in the centre of Barcelona. Pre-booking in summer is always recommended, especially if you are arriving in the evening. Best time to look for a hotel is 11am as that is when people check out. Expect to pay roughly 85 Euro-110 Euro for a 2-star, nice hotel.

Find below a list of Hotels you can book online now

"Hostales," Hostels in Barcelona usually refer to small family owned pensions but sometimes refer to dormitories (shared rooms), and these usually don´t work out much cheaper than pensions except at the peak of the high season. Not to be confused with youth hostels named "albergues juveniles" or just "albergues", which are plain dormitories. Many cheap hostels / pensions don't take reservations in the summer as they are always full. So if you are arriving at night make sure you have a place for at least one night, and go looking before 10 am the next morning as that is when people check out of their hostels.  Average hostel prices: 15-18 Euros for a single room with a shared bathroom, 27-36 Euros for a double. 21- 25 Euros for a single room en suite and 33-45 Euros for a double en suite. 

We recommend the Rooms4rent hostel in the city centre,  in Gran Via 602, with it comfortable rooms, equipped kitchen and TV room.  www.rooms4rentbcn.com
We can also recommend the 4 Be Hostels: www.youthostel.com. These include the Hostal Mar off Rambla Raval, and the Barcelona Dream Hostel, by the beach.

View our selection of cheap Hostels

Barcelona Apartments: Renting a holiday flat or apartment in Barcelona can be a good accommodation option for a short holiday break. Holiday apartments are especially concentrated in central Barcelona, around the Ramblas, the Gothic district, Born, and Raval, whilst in the summer the holiday flats in Barceloneta and near the sea are very popular. Booking in advance is recommended, especially during high season or when special events take place in the city, such as trade fairs or the Sonar music festival.

Barcelona has several agencies that specialize in renting holiday flats for tourists, usually with a minimum stay of 3 days. If you rent a flat for a longer stay of a couple of weeks or months you can get a better price. These flats are fully furnished and equipped, although it’s worth checking in advance whether a supplement for sheets and cleaning will be charged. Renting a flat for the duration of your stay gives you more flexibility as you can choose to eat out or eat in, and is particularly practical if you have small children.

Barcelona apartments vary in quality and price, if your budget is towards the lower end then expectations should be modified accordingly. However, any reputable letting agency will ensure that all the basic requirements for a pleasant stay are met. Prices start from €20 per person per night, for budget accommodation. Towards the top end, luxury apartments with terraces, pools, and spectacular views can also be found in Barcelona.

View listings at the bottom of the page
In Barcelona everyone rents out rooms, and it should take you about one week to find a nice place. Check our classifieds page under services.

These are the most popular places to look for rooms:

• Check the noticeboard at the Youth Information Centre, called CIAJ (Centre d'Informació i Assessorament per a Joves) at Calle Sant Oleguer, 6-8 in the Rambla de Raval (Metro Liceu / Drassanes) They also have a noticeboard about work vacancies and other stuff as well as a possibility of free internet, their website is www.bcn.es/ciaj . Remember to check the dates and be prepared for crowds in the spring and autumn, so get there early
  
• Visit Barcelona University in Plaza Universidad, near Placa Catalunya and check out their notice boards. In the busy season the notice boards are cleared every couple of days, so the ads are usually current.
  
• Visit International House in Calle Trafalgar 14 where lots of students rent out rooms, there are also notices up for work vacancies.
  

Remember to check our classifieds for rooms. Other good links for finding rooms online:

www.bcn.es/ciaj
www.habitatgejove.com
www.loquo.es

Expect to pay around 250-300 Euro per month (plus bills) for cheapest rooms. Standard (nice!) rooms are about 350-400 Euro a month. If you have a higher budget available then you can spend up to €600 for a room.... so take your time looking around for one that meets your requirements!  If you have the choice, the best time to look for a room is towards the end of the month, as this is when people move out and more rooms are available.
Check out our Language Corner for some useful words and phrases.

Average prices are 500 euros for a 2 bedroom, and 600 for a 3 bedroom. calculate 100 Euro extra for newly refurbished flats in central locations.

Finding decent and cheap accommodations in Barcelona can be a struggle, convincing an agency/landlord to give you a short term let is nearly impossible and even long term lets seem to be such a treasured item to hand out, one would start to believe that the landlords don't want to have tenants in the first place.
So what to do? How to get a roof over your head, without cutting a deal with the hostel you're staying with, to give you a 5-year lease on the room you will be sharing with 10 other travelers.

Should you only be staying in Barcelona less than a year, your best bet is to find a private landlord who rents out short term at up to 60% more than the average price, or search for classifieds in the places listed below.

But should you plan on staying in Barcelona for a bit longer you chances increase to find cheap accommodation. First piece of advice is to get a N.I.E. Number, and fast. That will register you in Spain, gives you permission to work and is a first step to renting your flat in BCN. Next is to get a job. You will find a flat much easier if you can give landlords a piece of evidence that you will be able to pay your rent for the next year or so. Finally a guarantor, somebody to stand up for you is often required. This can become a tricky task in its own right, best to make friends with somebody that has lived and worked in Barcelona for several years. Preferably Spanish or Catalan.

If you are a student, ask your university for help with finding a flat, as most universities can either help you get accommodation or give you information on where to find accommodation.

Finding that dream landlord can be achieved in three ways:
You can look at classified notice boards around town, such as the one in the Ciaj information center in Calle Ferran, which can be very tedious, painful and time consuming, as 80% of those flat and room listings tend to be out of date within 24hours of posting. Yet the best notice boards can be the flats themselves, as landlords sometimes put out signs on their flats advertising vacancies. So remember to keep an eye out for those when you are on your flat hunt.
Or you can go to estate agencies. But they don't come cheap. They can charge you up to a months rent commission, a months rent in advance and up to two months rent deposit for the flat you take.

Please note that there are many "listing agencies" in Barcelona who advertise cheap flats in a lot of the Spanish newspapers, charging 160 euros for the privilege to receive a list of flats and numbers you can contact yourself. We have not met a person yet, who claims to have found his or her flat through this type of agency.

The Barcelona connect Newsletter and barcelonaconnect.com is working with estate agencies to offer up to date listings of flats to let and flats for sale in Barcelona.

Accomodation agencies offer appartments for longer term stays. Contracts are normally arranged on a yearly basis, although shorter periods are possible. Be prepared for the initial payment that consists of one month's rent in advance, one month's rent as a deposit and one month's rent as the flat letting agency fee. Typically expect to pay three months rent up front when you take on a contract. The average price to rent a three bedroom apartment in Barcelona will be anything from 600 euros upwards.
Normally renting agencies require identification (passport, ID card) and evidence of a work contract. Tenants are often given the option to renew their contract. Government registered official agencies are of course recommended, and you are advised to be wary of any agency that requests a fee prior to finding you a flat.

Buying a Flat in Barcelona

Barcelona has the habit of gripping on and not letting go and if you’ve been here for a while you might be putting out tentative feelers in the direction of the property market. Although prices are high, the laws of gravity dictate that what goes up must come down, and you might just find that buying a property works out cheaper than renting. If that first step towards buying your first home confounds you completely, you’ve come to the right page.

Flat viewing
It is important to go and visit as many flats as possible within the price range you have selected. There are two ways of doing this. Firstly, you can visit an estate agent. Normally Spanish speaking, the estate agent will show you a selection of flats within your price range (almost always displayed in the front window with a photograph), that you can also visit. The second method is to pay attention to the little pieces of paper stuck on lamp posts advertising private sales. You can telephone the seller directly and arrange to go and visit the flat. The advantage of a private sale is that the estate agent does not take its own cut, normally 5% of the final cost. The disadvantage is that all negotiations are carried out directly between the buyer and the seller which can be stressful and sometimes unpleasant.

Putting down a deposit
When you have decided upon a flat make sure you visit twice as first time opinions can be deceptive. The next stage is to put down a deposit (Paga Señal) on the flat. If you go through an estate agent, a deposit constitutes about 5% of the total value; if your flat is worth €190.000 the deposit would be around 9.500€. Once the deposit has been paid, the Estate agent will give you a contract (Contrato de Arras) and reserve the flat for a specified amount of time, between one and three months. In this time period, you must secure a mortgage and if you are unable to do this you will lose the deposit. Some mortgages give 100% financing which means that you do not have to put down a deposit from your own savings. Some banks, however, will only give 80% of the total property value as a mortgage loan.

Getting a mortgage
So far so good, next comes the hard part – getting a mortgage. Normally the estate agent will look around to find you the best mortgage loan offer. If it is a private sale, or if you have special circumstances – such as being foreign, you might have to make the mortgage arrangements yourself. This involves visiting banks and requesting a mortgage loan. Every bank gives different interest rates on mortgage repayments and it is worth shopping around as it can make a big difference on your monthly repayments. There are two figures that are important. Firstly, the TAE which is the initial interest rate for the first six months. A good TAE rate would be 2.5%. The most important figure, however, is the interest rate after the first six months. This consists of the Euribor, which is the set European interest rate that changes every year and has been roughly 2% for the last three years, and the individual bank’s interest rate, which can be anything from 0.49% to 0.75%. A good interest rate would be Euribor + 0.49% (2.49%). Many banks offer excellent TAE rates but high individual rates that only come into effect after the first six months. You might also find that bank managers do not explain clearly what each interest rate means.

Mortgage eligibility – risk assessment
To assess whether you are legible for a mortgage, the bank will evaluate what level of risk you present. This process is called “Riesgos,” and normally takes between 7-14 days. It is a good idea to ask for a mortgage loan from a few banks at the same time so that if one bank rejects your request, there are others in the process of considering it. Remember, you only have limited time before your reservation contract runs out! To carry out the risk process, a bank will ask for the following things: a surveyor’s appraisal of the property in question (“tasamiento”: for a fee of €140 the bank or the estate agent’s will make the necessary arrangements); a full time employment contract or evidence of monthly earnings for a prolonged period of time (one year); details of all bank accounts in Spain and a signed statement testifying that you have no undeclared debts in Spain (this does not include information about other countries so if you have student loan repayments or outstanding debts abroad it is not necessary to declare them); NIE/NIF number and identification documents. Quite often if the bank considers that you present a high risk then they will grant you the mortgage on the basis that a guarantor also signs the mortgage loan contract. This means that if you or your partner can not make a mortgage repayment, the guarantor will be held responsible for said repayment. A guarantor must be a property owner and in full time employment. It will be necessary to present legal information about the guarantor’s earnings and identity to the bank. Foreign people might have a problem in this instance if their guarantor does not live in Spain as many banks will only accept Spanish residents as legible guarantors. One of the few banks that accept guarantors based outside of Spain is the Caja Mar.

Signing the contract
Once you have been approved for a mortgage loan, the bank will set a date with the solicitor and the estate agent to sign the contract for both the property sale and the mortgage loan. On this day the buyer, the seller, the estate agent rep., the bank manager and the solicitor will be present. Be prepared for the seller to want to take a 5% share of the total price as “black money / en negro.” This is a common, albeit illegal, practice in which the full price quoted on the contract for the property sale is 5% less than the asking price, which is then given as a separate check to the seller so that they can avoid paying tax on this money. You will have a cheaper tax bracket if the property is legally owned by a Spanish resident and, therefore, it is worth considering carefully whose name appears in the property contract.

We hope that this article has cleared up some of those doubts or shed a little light on the daunting process that has become the talk of the town for many citizens of Barcelona.

Article by Genevieve Shaw, March 2006