The Government sent a letter in April to 736 commercial companies to remind them that they must accept rent extensions requested by their tenants during the validity of the extraordinary decree that allows contracts ending between 2026 and 2027 to be extended by two years.
The communication arrives with a relevant gap between the political announcement and the actual detail of the registry. The official message spoke of 541 companies, but the final catalog consulted adds almost 200 more and, moreover, the Ministry of Social Rights, Consumer Affairs and 2030 Agenda itself admits that it does not have the specific number of properties per company or the reference date for the count.
The registry dropped from 903 to 736 companies after excluding non-commercial entities
The initial list disseminated by the ministry included 903 entities. It was later reduced to 736 by discarding public administrations, foundations, religious institutions, cooperatives, and communities of goods, owners, and hereditary ones.
These 736 companies own or manage more than 50 homes each and, together, accumulate more than 50,000 rental homes, according to the Executive's press release. Among them are international operators such as Blackstone, Cerberus, Goldman Sachs, Lone Star, and TPG.
Banking entities such as Banc Sabadell, Caixabank, BBVA, Santander, Kutxabank, and Unicaja also appear, in addition to developers like Núñez i Navarro and companies with open conflicts with tenants such as Renta Corporación and Vivenio Residencial.
Official sources from the department led by Pablo Bustinduy specified that the count is a calculation made from public sources. The ministry added that it does not have a detailed list of the number of properties per company.
A study in Catalonia placed the park controlled by 284 parent companies at almost 70,000 apartments
In Catalonia, a previous study based on deposits made to l'Institut Català del Sòl identified 284 megaproprietary parent companies. This group controlled 9.6% of the rental stock, equivalent to almost 70,000 homes.
The data, closed at the end of 2022, placed the Generalitat de Catalunya as the main holder with 10,731 apartments. Next were Caixabank with 5,064, l'Ajuntament de Barcelona with 4,809, Cerberus with 2,877, and Blackstone with 2,493.
The comparison between both counts leaves figures of different scope. While the state registry is presented as an inventory of commercial companies to which the April letter was referred, the Catalan study photographed parent companies and gave a much greater dimension to the weight of large holders in the rental market.
At the same time, the Government of Pedro Sánchez announced that it had processed a communication to the 13 largest holders in the State, to whom it attributes more than 100,000 rental homes, although it has not made their names public.