Platform-mediated short-term rentals and gentrification in Madrid

Abstract

Gentrification demands updated frameworks to assess the impact of some major global trends on the local populations’ access to housing. Short-term accommodation using digital platforms in previously gentrified central urban areas is playing a significant role in outlining a new wave of ‘transnational gentrification’ in a number of global cities. Having undergone classical patterns of gentrification over the last two decades, the central district of Madrid and its surroundings are showing patterns of a new wave of gentrification in a context of economic crisis, planetary rent gaps, increasing global tourism and an increase in rental prices in central areas that may be related to the emergence of short-term rentals – making Madrid a relevant case for depicting transnational gentrification in the Southern European capitals. Based on empirical data, this work explores the holiday rental supply in Madrid over three years (2015–2018), verifying a strong association between the growth in tourist arrivals, the settlement of new residents from wealthy economic backgrounds and increasing rental prices. Since this process is accompanied by deregulation of local rental contracts and the growth of transnational Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs), even in some of the most vulnerable areas located beyond the M-30 ring road, this wave of gentrification has the potential to produce displacement and substitution of residents.