More than 66,000 active rental contracts registered with the Housing Authority in 2024 

Following recent legal reforms aimed at curbing overcrowding and improving contract compliance, the Housing Authority has updated its rental dashboard, offering a more detailed and accessible snapshot of the private rental market in Malta. First launched last year, the dashboard uses data visualisation to present information directly sourced from thousands of contracts in a clear and accessible format.  

While the number of rental contracts continued to increase, the pace of growth has slowed compared to previous years. At the end of 2024, there were 66,394 active rental contracts registered with the Housing Authority, an increase of 7.6 per cent over the previous year. For context, in 2020, the first year of the register, active contracts numbered just over 27,700, highlighting the significant expansion of this sector over the past four years. 

Slightly more than half of the active contracts at the end of 2024 began during the same year, while 22 per cent started at some point in 2023. The remaining 25 per cent have been in place since at least 2022, reflecting a mix of new and ongoing rental agreements in the market. 

While most leases are initially set for one year, renewals play a crucial role in extending the duration of existing tenancies. In 2024, a total of 26,693 contracts were renewed, with approximately 87 per cent occurring automatically. These renewals help to promote rent stability, as they reduce the information asymmetry between landlords and tenants that typically exists at the start of a tenancy. Notably, over 90 per cent of renewed contracts retain the same rental rate, underscoring the stabilising effect of continued tenancies on the private rental market. 

Rental activity continues to be widely distributed across various localities in Malta. Eighteen localities now have over 1,000 registered active rental contracts. St Paul’s Bay remains the most sought-after area, with more than 9,500 contracts, representing 14 per cent of all active agreements. It is followed by Sliema, Msida, St Julian’s, Marsascala and Gzira.  

The latest update is the first since the introduction of the legal amendments that came into effect on 1 September 2024. These reforms aimed to reduce bureaucracy, curb abuse, and establish a minimum occupancy standard for shared rental contracts to address growing concerns about overcrowding. The amendments also expanded the remit of the Adjudicating Panel, originally set up to quickly resolve disputes between landlords and tenants. In 2024, the Panel issued 138 decisions, with the majority related to deposit disputes, followed by issues concerning utility bills and property repairs. 

Rents in different localities 

One of the key features of the dashboard is the rent calculator, which provides descriptive statistics by property type, size, and locality based on registrations with the Housing Authority. 

It is a well-known fact that rents differ from one locality to the next, and even within the same locality, from one street to another. These differences can result from several factors including the quality of the finishes, desirable amenities, and the surrounding neighbourhood.  In the latest update, we try to capture these price differences at locality-level by adding the upper (75 per cent) and lower (25 per cent) quartile in addition to the mean and median rent for a given property type and size. This is intended to better reflect price variations, and it offers a clearer view of rent levels at both ends of the market. The charts below illustrate these different rent levels for some localities across the Maltese islands for 2-bedroom and 3-bedroom flats that were registered with the Housing Authority in the second half of 2024.  

For instance, in St Paul’s Bay, the median rent for a two-bedroom flat stood at €825, with the lower and upper quartiles standing at €700 and €1,000, respectively. In the same locality, a three-bedroom flat has a median rent of €1,000, with a corresponding quartile range of €800 and €1,200. Overall, this new feature significantly enhances the quality of insights by highlighting the spread and variability of rental prices in different localities.  

Other changes to the dashboard 

In addition to the inclusion of quartile ranges, the latest update introduces two new features. 

The first is a dedicated section that consolidates all research and publications based on data from the Housing Authority’s rent register. This includes comparative studies between registered and advertised rents (including those on Facebook Marketplace), specialised surveys with tenants and landlords, and legal publications examining compliance within the rental market. 

The second enhancement focuses on improved data accessibility. Users can now download datasets directly from the homepage with a single click, making access to information quicker and more efficient. 

Overall, these refinements reflect the valuable feedback received from users across a wide range of sectors, contributing to a more user-friendly and informative tool. This dashboard reflects the Housing Authority’s continued commitment to improving price transparency in the private rental market by providing stakeholders with accessible and reliable data. 

Matthew Zerafa is the CEO of the Housing Authority and Dr Brian Micallef heads the Authority’s Digitalisation, Legal and Communications department. The dashboard can be accessed directly from the Housing Authority’s website.