The mid-term rental turn: Between regulatory evasion, asset liquidity and new tenant profiles

Mid-term rentals (MTRs) have recently become a significant housing segment in today's contested residential landscapes. They occupy a growing market niche for landlords seeking to avoid new regulations in the long-term and short-term rental sectors while catering to mobile urban populations, including digital nomads, expats and students. The intermediation of digital rental platforms has enabled this rapid development. Using a dataset from Idealista, Spain's largest digital rental platform, we map how this process has unfolded in the cities of Barcelona, Malaga and Madrid and situate it in its broader political economy. Rather than a uniform dynamic, we find that MTR proliferation responds to a complex interplay of economic incentives, regulatory blind spots, and demand from transnationally mobile populations. This study contributes to a growing critical literature on housing financialization and platform rentierism by offering the first multi-city empirical analyses of mid-term rentals in Europe. We argue that regulatory avoidance is the primary driver in Barcelona, while market dynamics and asset valorisation play a more decisive role in Madrid and Málaga. These findings carry important implications for housing policy and the regulation of platform-mediated rental markets.