No more holidays in Madrid?

[LadyLindaT]

Since 2025, Madrid has clamped down on private rentals for tourist lets. It now seems to be impossible to find anywhere to stay in the city centre. I understand the reasoning, but I find it sad that there is nowhere legal to stay, anymore.

There have always been holiday lets in every city, town and village in the world. You have always been able to rent an apartment/cottage/house. Air BnB didn't invent it

Same in Barcelona. Finally - and thankfully - for the locals.

Did you never go on holiday in the 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s?

Never went on self catering holidays?

Ive been renting self catering apartments way before airbnb, its just a booking platform, it can easily be cottages.com or the French/Italian/Spanish equivalent. In the old days it was pamphlets and brochures that you picked up and either phoned someone, the owner or wrote to them sending a cheque. Imagine that.

We never use hotels. We're out all day and evening as well so not sure what some of the posters mean about going out so you use a hotel.

Theres loads on airbnb, why are you saying you cant find anything?

Our preferred neighbourhood is Lavapies, although we have stayed in most of the neighbourhoods. Theres load of options there.

Airbnb is not just a booking platform in the same way that Facebook is not just a social media platform. Airbnb is destroying communities, local economies and infrastructure. It’s good that some governments are banning it, and more should.

Maybe those rules are bs

Surely it’s governments that are (rightly) banning residential apartments / houses being used as short term rentals when there is pressure on the local housing market, no matter how they’re booked.

Plenty of properties on the platform are perfectly legal serviced or self-catering holiday apartments, and I don’t see an issue with people renting out their spare room or annexe either, for those that don’t mind that. We rented an Airbnb in Sweden that was an annexe in the garden of the owners, it had never been available to rent as a stand alone property long term and with limited kitchen facilities it wouldn’t be suitable for that either.

I mean, you can obviously disagree with them, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist, which is what we were discussing. You don’t have to buy a property in Madrid if you disagree with the rules.

Went to Port Isaac (Doc Martin) village in Cornwall last winter
Like a Ghost town rather than a bustling fishing village with all the little houses locked up with Key Safes outside.
looked on Air b n b and was aghast they are all in there
no bugger anywhere

Exactly, same with villages near me on the East Yorkshire coast. They are completely gutted. What hotels are good at as well is controlling tourist numbers. There are so many parts of the world now where you can’t move for tourists at certain times of the year, that’s not a good thing.

Of course other forms of accommodation (beyond hotels) have always existed, but the point is that they need to be licensed and vetted, just like any business. And in the same way that I couldn’t just decide to turn my house into a cafe or a shop, I shouldn’t be allowed to turn it into tourist accommodation.

I remember seeing the same in the Old Town when I visited Bari last summer. Keysafes everywhere.

Personally I would ban Airbnb apart from rooms in an existing lived in home, or annexes in the grounds of someone’s home ( that wouldn’t work as a standard let) here in Bath it decimated the 1 and2 bed private rental market and smaller prettier houses in nice areas - or I wouldn’t allow more than 5 daysa month and Airbnb patrolled it.

Yes
They're on you in a flash

Try www.silverdoor.com