Rents rose by 3.6 percent over 12 month period

THE average cost of renting a home rose by 3.6 percent from May last year to May this year, according to the latest report on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) from the National Institute of Statistics. According to these figures, the cost of renting a home rose by 0.2 percent in May compared with April, while the increase since January was 2.1 percent. The increase in renting homes in the Balearics is less than throughout the whole of Spain, the national average rise in May was 0.4 percent compared with April and 4.3 percent during the last 12 months. The average rise since January this year was 2.4 percent. The interannual rise in rents in the Balearics is higher than that registered in Galicia (3.5 percent), Castilla and Leon (3.3 percent), Navarra (3 percent), Asturias (2.8 percent), Cantabria (2.4 percent), La Rioja (2.2 percent) and the Canaries (2.1 percent). In the rest of the autonomous regions rents rose more than those in the Balearics, the greatest rise since May 2005 being in Ceuta and Melilla (6.8 percent).