I don’t know how this isn’t getting more attention, but Ukio that slick “luxury furnished rental” company is honestly making the housing crisis even worse here in Spain, especially in cities like Barcelona and Madrid.
They take normal apartments — actual homes people used to live in — throw in a few neutral-colored sofas and a wifi router, and suddenly they’re charging €2,500+ a month for a one-bedroom.
And no, not in prime beachfront zones,in normal residential neighborhoods.
This isn’t some new startup trying to “innovate.” It’s just gentrification on steroids. They’re vacuuming up rental stock, pricing out locals, and selling this fake “live like a local” bullshit to remote workers and tech bros. Meanwhile, actual locals can’t even find a place that doesn’t cost half their salary.
It’s not just about money, it’s the vibe too. Whole buildings now feel like Airbnbs: no neighbors, no community, just strangers rolling their suitcases in and out every few weeks. The shops change, the bakeries close, and suddenly your city feels like a backdrop for someone else’s Instagram reel.
And Ukio knows exactly what they’re doing. They’re funded by VCs, they pitch themselves to investors as a “scalable housing solution,” and they’re playing the system legally while we’re the ones left dealing with the fallout.
If you’re reading this and thinking of staying in one of these? Just know it’s not “living abroad” it’s participating in a quiet form of displacement. You might not see it, but people are being pushed out of their homes so someone can rent a “stylish loft” with fake plants and a €5,000/month price tag.
Housing isn’t a product for tourists. It’s not a business model. It’s a fucking right.
Anyway, I’m tired of watching this happen in slow motion while these companies keep growing unchecked. If you’ve dealt with Ukio or similar companies, or got pushed out of your flat because some startup swooped in post it. Let’s at least start calling this shit out.
Y perdona para no expressar esto en castellano me viene más fácil en inglés. Perdoname.
Not to get mixed with other companies, these guys:
https:/
/maps.app.goo.gl/pDuTjM9gQcBePrnk8
by Butt_pass
23 comments
I’ve lived in the Usera barrio of Madrid since 2017. Luckily I have a controlled rent but man, the number of touristic flats and stupid McPisos that have popped up all over, the gentrification, the obras of new buildings to cater to people with the money to buy them… We are fucked.
Gracias por la información. The future looks bleak as fuck.
Commenting for more visibility. Ukio is the worst! And many of their apartments are not licensed. They are merely subletting. I’m sure they have friends in various city councils because what they are doing would be regulated out of existence if they didn’t. AirBnB gets all the attention, meanwhile Ukio is able to list their rentals on Idealista etc. It’s crazy. They exploit the lack of laws around short term rentals, the tenant has no rights, and they drive up prices everywhere they go because at those prices they can just leave their flats sitting empty half the time.
Something extremely corrupt is going on with them. And the local landlords who use them are a big part of the problem.
As long as it is long term rentals, it’s not really something to be angry about.
You can’t have the option to go easily abroad, which so many Spanish people very gladly use, without the “abroad” being also able to easily come to you.
The thing is: If you have a property and some entity comes to you with a price a little above the market price…would you sell or not?
Even hating this situation, I would.
Market works like that.
This is something we, civilians, can’t solve due to living in a “big community” called state or nation.
A house should belong to a family or person (to live there) but the more time passes, the more properties the entities acquire, and the more easier is for them to move them i.e. A company **doesn’t need** to sell a property. Keeping them is more profitable.
We need a party to fight for Spain, not Spain’s economy only
Estamos muy jodidos, olvidad España como país y aceptemos que es un patio para los guiris ricos, desde Benidorm hasta Gibraltar. Lo único que queda es que nos pillen al resto de España, yo por eso pienso huir de aquí
The worrying part is the alternative party blames illegal immigration for this type of stuff lmao.
If there’s a product on the market and there are people paying for it then this company isn’t the problem.
Shit like this and coliving garbage like Enso co-living and all this other shit are absolutely criminal. And shame on the people who use them too.
Soy italiano, tengo miedo que esso podría accader en Italia también. Es disgustos que por el interés de capitalismo se falta la conectividad umana.
A la mierda con ukio y airbnb!
Each day that passes I’m more in for a total regulation of the market starting with forbidding foreign companies and non nationals for purchasing any kind of housing (unless, you know, if they are the ones who are building it).
We’ve been going in the last 20 years from one housing crisis to the next, things are worse than ever and all we see is foreign capital coming to make things even worse.
Qué ganas de que llegue al poder un gobierno socialista y arregle este asunto
Let’s be frank. Our “progressive” government hasn’t done much in housing in these 6 years. Just blaming the landlords and protecting squatters.
Worry not. If a conservative government comes next, I don’t expect significant changes.
We need to build in high demand areas.
We need to give preference to real people who are going to move in rather than companies, banks or shady foreign investment firms.
More regulations and limitation to holiday rentals.
Less regulations and limitations to rent to real people. Deregulate prices (they will go down eventually). Ability to kick squatters out quickly.
More houses available to buy or rent = more affordable prices.
Never heard of them. Thanks for the heads up
its the politicians. don’t blame anyone but the politicians. if you blame anyone else, you lose the plot. the politicians create the environment where irresponsible people, businesses and corporations take advantage of the “rules”. its kind of like when you shop for sales. you do it because you want to take advantage of the situation. is no different when politicians take money from crooks in order to make laws that benefit them. its the politicians.
This post was written by AI and so therefore should be ignored.
If there is no demand for it they won’t make it, don’t worry. If people actually want to rent from them, they are actually providing what the market wants. You don’t have to want it or like it, but nothing wrong with offering what people want.
People are being displaced by governments refusing to allow more housing to be built and investment to be carried out in highly productive companies.
Don’t blame the people who are playing the game, blame the people making the rules.
It’s really sad but that company is addressing a major problem with the Spanish real estate market. There are so many unscrupulous landlords that break all the rules to protect renters and neighbors that do shady things like try to circumvent contracts, demand insane amounts of cash up front, etc. I have heard so many stories of people getting burned when trying to rent legitimately so I understand why paying a more or less reputable company can seem so appealing, especially if you are moving to Spain with an ample budget.
man, I stayed in carabancel , 2 nights last year, first time relocating in Spain. the whole building was owned by a chinese family, they had two store at the base , one restaurant and one alimentation. all 40 apartments were owned by them.
god knows how many they still bought. on the lther side in Chamartin, I know a Don, who has over 10 aparts and 2 houses in hortaleza. I rent one of his apart. one of his concern is that he couldn’t rent the house because market rent price is too high , nobody wants it.
So the TRUE reality is that yea, there are a lot of companies that want to take over the monopol, BUT yet in Spain, there are still a lot of greedy spaniards that on one hand they go in the street saying stop turism destroying our country, and on the other hand they laugh because their business is working well on passive income
I had a look at what properties they have in Madrid and everything is in prime areas, not in “normal residential neighborhoods”
This is an example of what they are offering
[https://ukio.com/furnished-apartments/madrid/centro/malasana-universidad/terzigno-1478?checkIn=2025-08-11&checkOut=2025-09-11](https://ukio.com/furnished-apartments/madrid/centro/malasana-universidad/terzigno-1478?checkIn=2025-08-11&checkOut=2025-09-11)
This is not a building where locals we have been living in the last 50 years unless you were part of the very upper class.
Whew, one more to avoid. Thanks for letting us know!
Moved out of Barcelona at the start of this year, after three years in an apartment where the landlords never raised the rent. It was a quiet and residential part of L’Eixample. I was curious to know a ballpark figure of how much rent the landlords might charge the new tenants, so I drew a very tight circle around the area on Idealista to see what the going rate was for two-bedroom pisos. Prices were averaging about X2.5 what we had been paying (990 a month), and a shocking amount of the available listings were from this company, some of them reaching upwards of 3000 a month.
This is so sad. Thanks for posting. I hate this situation so much. The mere idea of profiting from houses makes me sick. Why isn’t it illegal yet!
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