El Diario de la Vivienda

An 80 m² flat in Sabadell is valued at €193,700, and its average rent is €869 a month — €10,428 a year. That works out to a gross yield of 5.4%.

Gross means before anything else: council tax (IBI), community fees, insurance, one-off building charges, income tax on the rent, and any months the flat sits empty. Net yield lands well below that.

It's the most of the twelve municipalities in the area. Worth distrusting the shortcut of always going for the highest yield: high yield tends to travel with low prices, and low prices with weaker rental demand and higher turnover.

The figure is for comparing municipalities against each other, not for deciding on a purchase. A specific flat can yield well above or well below its city's average.

An 80 m² flat is valued at €183,200 in Terrassa and €193,700 in Sabadell: a €10,500 gap in Terrassa's favour.

Where they do split is on yield: Terrassa returns 0.4 points less a year (5.0% versus 5.4%).

On rent, Terrassa signs at €765 a month and Sabadell at €869: a €104 gap across 1,457 deposit-lodged contracts between the two.

Comparing towns is useful for orientation, not for pricing. Within a single town, the gap between neighbourhoods is usually bigger than the one between these two.

An 80 m² flat in Rubí is valued at €196,100. Rented at €816 a month, that generates €9,792 a year — so buying equals 20.0 years of rent.

It's the mirror image of yield: the more years, the more expensive buying is relative to renting. It doesn't include mortgage interest, purchase taxes, or renovation costs, all of which push the figure higher.

As a reference point, Spain's national average has historically moved between 15 and 25 years depending on the cycle.

Rubí is the 9th most expensive of the twelve municipalities in the area, and the 7th most expensive to rent. Where those two rankings don't match is where the opportunities tend to sit.

Resale housing in Sant Cugat has an average appraised value of €5,036/m². For an 80 m² flat, that comes to €402,900.

The figure isn't drawn from listing prices: it comes from 306 real appraisals carried out in the municipality this quarter and collected by Spain's Ministry of Housing.

Appraised value is the conservative benchmark a bank uses to grant a mortgage. The price a sale actually completes at tends to run higher, and a city-wide average captures neither the floor, the lift, nor the state of the kitchen.

New-build homes are valued at €5,690/m², 13% above resale.

Among the twelve municipalities this paper tracks, Sant Cugat is the most expensive to buy in.