Lleida has gone from building an average of 572 official protection homes per year in the eighties to less than 20 currently. The drop comes at a time when the residential market has made both buying and renting more expensive and leaves a paradox in the city, with more pressure on access to housing and much less protected production than four decades ago.
Between 2020 and 2023, only 79 protected homes were built in the capital of Segrià, with an annual average slightly below 20. That figure is equivalent to 3.5% of the annual average of the eighties, when 5,729 protected apartments were built, 52.2% of the 10,978 homes of this type completed in Lleida until 2023.
Protected offer fell while rent rose 55%
The setback is not limited to the last cycle. Between 2000 and 2009, Lleida city registered an annual average of 159 protected homes and added 1,598 in the entire decade, eight times more than in the period 2020-2023.
At the close of 2023, 3,739 homes in the city maintained the protected status, barely a third of the total built by that date. To that reduction have been added hundreds of apartments that lost the condition in 2024 and 2025 due to expiration.
In parallel, the free market has continued to become more expensive. The price of rent in Lleida city increased by 55% between 2005 and 2023, and a sample of 52 rental apartments taken in February 2025 placed the average at 742.7 euros.
The buying and selling has also increased. Between 2004 and 2024, 31,117 transactions were registered in Lleida city and 78.5% corresponded to second-hand housing. In that same period, the average price of used housing rose by 21.3%, to 158,000 euros in 2024, while new housing reached 105,000 euros after an increase of 20.6%.
Public promotion barely added 108 homes since 1990
The direct contribution of the administration has been minimal compared to the historical volume. Between 1990 and 2023, Lleida city completed only 108 publicly promoted homes.
Today the construction of social housing depends on private initiative, because developers consider that this type of development is not profitable without subsidies for those who build and for those who buy.
Montse Pujol, president of the Association of Developers in Lleida, linked that lack of activity to the sector's uncertainty and financing conditions.
"The business of a development is not done in five months, but in two years, which is why we need regulatory certainty, in addition to more facilities in financing" - Montse Pujol, president of the Association of Developers in Lleida
The sector representative added that public aid is needed to promote these promotions. Her position comes in a city that, despite maintaining a pace of housing starts above the Catalan average, has not transferred that volume to the protected housing stock.
Between 1998 and 2023, Lleida city initiated 7.55 homes per thousand inhabitants, above the 7.12 in Catalonia, although below the 8.54 in the Segrià region as a whole. In completed housing, it registered 6.55 per thousand inhabitants, compared to 6.07 in Catalonia and 6.60 in the region.
Furthermore, in 2026, 666 homes in Lleida city were affected by the expiry of the rating, although the Government provisionally extended its validity, as in the rest of the Catalan municipalities declared a tense residential market area.