With rising inflation and changes in home loans, many families see the rental market as the only solution to finding a home to live in. This reality has translated into a 19.8% increase in the number of new lease contracts in the first three months of 2022 compared to the same period last year.

There was also an increase in the median rents of houses, which increased by 6.4%, reaching 6.16 euros per square meter (euros/m2) in the first quarter of 2022, according to the provisional data from the National Statistics Institute (INE).

Between January and March 2022, the median rent of the 23,934 new lease agreements reached 6.16 euros/m2. “This value represents an increase of 6.4% compared to the same period of 2021, however it was the lowest value of the year-on-year rates of change since the second quarter of 2021. Compared to the previous quarter, the median rent of the first quarter of 2022 decreased 1.4%”, points out the Portuguese statistics office in the bulletin.

The number of new leasing contracts in the country was also higher than that recorded in the same quarter of 2021 (19,977 new contracts), representing an increase in leasing activity of +19.8%.

Where did rents rise most?

Compared to the same period last year, house rents increased, in median terms, in 24 of the 25 Portuguese sub-regions in the first three months of 2022. The autonomous regions of Madeira (+18.3%) and the Azores (+12.2 %) and the Region of Leiria (+10.4%) registered the highest year-on-year growth, points out the institute. And there were still others that showed year-on-year variations in house rents above the reality of the country, such as the Lisbon Metropolitan Area (+6.7%), Algarve (+6.7%) or the Porto Metropolitan Area (+7.2%).