The Safe Rental Observatory of the Foundation has carried out a study on the weight of tourist apartments in the rental market in different cities of the Spanish State. The study was conducted using data from the National Institute of Statistics (INE) and the Airbnb platform.

In the case of Donostia-San Sebastián, the study reveals that there are 1,798 houses in Donostia-San Sebastián, if they were destined for regular rent, the market offer for rent would increase by 10.82%. Specifically, according to the research data, there are a total of 94,731 dwellings in the city, of which 14,817 are for rent. Thus, the orientation of the tourist accommodation towards the residential rental would increase the offer, but the conclusions of the research indicate that in this way it would not be enough to solve the problem of housing in Donostia.

This is evident, as demand is higher: there are only 7,000 protected housing applications and 7,000 free housing applications in Ibaeta and Illarra housing projects. However, it is also clear that the housing problem would be one more step towards the incorporation of 1,798 housing units into the rental market, provided that housing is affordable or rented. In this regard, several cities have already begun to implement measures to ban tourist homes, such as New York or Barcelona, and the Bizilagunak platform has already proposed a number of feasible measures last year.

Other significant data can also be extracted from the research. On the one hand, the study points out that 15,399 properties in Donostia-San Sebastián are not the first property of their owners, but that their owners have other properties. On the other hand, the study does not include it, but according to data from the INE of 2021, the last available, Donostia-San Sebastián has 5,522 empty dwellings. Thus, for example, intervention in vacant housing (5,522), tourist housing (1,798) and housing other than the first of the owners (15,399) would mean taking steps to resolve or at least alleviate the problem of housing in Donostia, without the need to occupy free spaces.