🏡 Are landlords quitting short-term rentals?

Just because they're getting out of one workaround doesn't mean they've stopped...working around.

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This should be good news, but…nope.

Landlords aren't dumb. When they want to dodge rent controls or government attempts to unilaterally extend rental contracts, they shift their rentals to seasonal (less than 12-month) contracts. (After Catalonia put in rent caps, these contracts jumped 56% in a year.) Now, this pisses off renters because under these contracts, they pay more and may have to move every year. So the news that seasonal contracts became a smaller part of the rental pool this year should be cause for celebration, right?

Right?

Well, no. What on the surface certainly looks like good news turns out to be just another sign that Spain's housing law of 2023 is the poster child for the law of unintended consequences — i.e., it was meant to increase the supply of affordable housing but has done everything but.

Let us count the ways: