The government's report on not limiting rental prices is full of errors

PalmIn December 2025, the Balearic Government received the results of a report from the Rovira i Virgili University (URV) Foundation, which supported its position regarding the rent control permitted by state regulations. According to the study's conclusions, limiting rent prices in the Balearic Islands would be counterproductive because it would exacerbate the difficulties in accessing housing. The Housing Department invested €15,519.46 in this study, authored by Sergio Nasarre, Professor of Civil Law and founder of the UNESCO Chair, and Santiago Ariste, Professor of Methodology of Analysis at the URV. However, the report is riddled with errors: more than half of the tables it provides contain mistakes. Percentages are incorrect in 13 of the 25 tables submitted to support its argument, according to calculations by this newspaper, verified by experts.

The text, titled Report on the advisability of introducing a rent control system for residential rentals in the Balearic IslandsHe has been cited on several occasions by representatives of the Executive. Among them, the Housing Minister, José Luis Mateo, who, in the plenary session of February 10, lashed out against the state Housing Law, which, for the past three years, has allowed for limiting rental prices in the Balearic Islands, although the People's Party (PP) refuses to do so. "We are doing what is necessary with measures to address the main problem, which is the lack of supply, and not resorting to magic formulas that confuse the public and limit prices, something we know doesn't work," he asserted in the plenary session. "In fact, a report commissioned by the Government," he continued in response to PSIB deputy Mercedes Garrido, "from a group of experts, whom I assume you want to discredit, experts from the UNESCO Chair in Housing at the Rovira i Virgili University (URV), [...] recommends not intervening in prices in the Islands and also warns that it is inadvertently inverted."

Indeed, the 51-page report concludes that rent controls reduce "the availability of rental housing," intensify "competition for units not subject to such strict regulation," and generate "distributive distortions that unequally affect households with different income levels." It relies on "international and national literature" and also highlights that when regulations are tightened, "part of the supply migrates to less regulated modalities." Based on figures from Catalonia, where the state law is applied, it asserts that "any intervention that restricts price freedom without being accompanied by measures to expand supply risks exacerbating existing problems."

However, most of the percentage increases and decreases in the evolution of rented apartments, residential and temporary rental deposits, and the average rental price contain calculation errors. For example, when the study presents an evolution of the index of the number of larger rented dwellings among the municipalities with the most of 20,000 inhabitants. Thus, it speaks of an increase in these properties of 42.5%, 50.1%, and 62.9% in Alcúdia, Calvià, and Ciutadella between 2011 and 2023, when it was (according to data from the Spanish government included in the same document) 73.79%, or 100%. The error is repeated in the calculation for municipalities with more than 20,000 inhabitants. It also occurs with respect to the number of residential rental deposits by municipality and island. For example, it mentions a 65% decrease in the number of deposits in Ibiza between 2020 and 2024, when the correct percentage is 39.4%, and a 161.5% decrease in Formentera, when it is 61.76%. Regarding short-term rentals, the error is repeated. It mentions an increase in the number of deposits of 45.8% in Ibiza, 76.9% in Formentera, 68% in Mallorca, and 65.8% in Menorca between 2020 and 2024. The correct figures are 84.62%, 333%, 212.5%, and 19%. Similar errors are also repeated in the calculations of the evolution of rental prices and security deposit prices.

How might this affect the study's conclusions? Eduard Robsy, an economist specializing in housing and currently an elected PSIB councilor in Menorca, has identified, first and foremost, the errors, which this newspaper has confirmed. "The number of arithmetic errors in simple calculations is surprising. Not bad for a top-level piece of work on which to base the most important housing decision this autonomous community must make," he comments. However, the expert believes the entire text needs to be amended. "It's not just that it's poorly calculated; it's that it's based on indicators that are invalid for drawing conclusions," he argues. "Basically, the report makes everything up: it says that it hasn't worked in Catalonia—ignoring all the reports that contradict its thesis—and then it says that it wouldn't work in the Balearic Islands either, but there's no effort to confirm that there's a parallel trend and that the parallel breaks down with the declaration of areas under pressure." "It's a pure exercise in dogmatism and arrogance," the socialist laments.

A "relevant" omission

In this regard, Robsy points out that the study's data selection is "biased" and the report's methodology "dubious." "It uses data and municipalities according to convenience and doesn't separate their potential cumulative effects," he says. "There is no solid argument in the work that conclusively demonstrates the failure of declaring areas under stress in the cities where it has been applied, much less to justify its conclusions." He also adds a "significant" omission from the text. "At no point is it mentioned that in 2019 the minimum duration of rental contracts increased from three to five years (to seven in the case of corporate landlords)," he notes. This, he says, should have been taken into account when calculating the evolution of the number of rental contracts: because fewer are not necessarily being signed due to price caps, but this variable may also have reduced the number. "The study also suggests that the increase in seasonal rental listings is a direct result of the approval of the Housing Rights Law, when this shift occurred much earlier," he emphasizes. "The Islands deserve an independent report, based on solid and verified data, rigorously presented, and using a sound quantitative methodology," he insists. Ivan Murray, PhD in Geography and expert on tourism development, is also critical of the report's methodology. "I was quite alarmed," he says. "It uses a very small sample, attempts to draw conclusions that cannot be statistically significant, and the methodological design is questionable," he explains. He also points to discrepancies between the text and the report's conclusions. "Analytically, this study does not distinguish between the types of rental contracts," he explains, and believes it should delve into the details of the data more closely. "Academic literature is not usually about black and white, but rather about debate," he notes. "Price regulation is an important measure, but it must be accompanied by a range of other measures, although it does have an effect, and the report's authors themselves acknowledge this," he adds.

Macià Blàzquez, Professor of Geography at the University of the Balearic Islands (UIB) and a tourism researcher, also disagrees with the report's conclusions. "Proposing to expand the supply without applying restrictions to market mechanisms is to refuse to accept any environmental or social limitations, disregarding social equity and planetary boundaries," he points out. "The report legitimizes the narrative of the PP government's laws weakening land protections, with the support of Vox: the creation of strategic residential projects on rural land or the legalization of properties on protected land," he argues. He also criticizes the report for dismissing the elimination of Airbnb as an option to significantly lower rental prices "without statistical support." The report he, along with Murray and Maria Antònia Martínez, prepared for the UIB, he warns, "refutes this."