The Resilience of the Medium-Term Rental and the Boom of Digital Nomads

In the city of Barcelona, rentals between 1 and 11 months, have been steadily growing after 2017. The so called medium-term rentals (MTRs) combine higher prices and practically the same management costs than long-term rentals (LTRs) and have the flexibility to absorb housing coming from the STR market, as well as from the LTR market. Using fixed effects and web-scrapped Airbnb data, this study delves for the first time on the resilience and characteristics of MTRs. Our findings suggest that during the pandemic MTRs increased their daily fee by 11.5%, equal to approximately €10, reaching a peak of 20.5% during the second state of alarm in Spain. In addition, we find that the negative impact over occupancy was much stronger for STRs than for MTRs, experiencing an on average drop of 38.2% and 20.1%, respectively. In terms of supply, our findings indicate an average increase per neighborhood of 27.4% in MTRs. Finally, we find that relative to STRs, MTRs and accommodations that switch at least one time between both markets during the pandemic, offer dwellings with less bedrooms, at a lower fee, and are more likely to be offered by a super host.