New craze in Spain for renting out living rooms in occupied villas by the hour at up to 1,200 euros per booking

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The aim of these platforms is to give homeowners the opportunity to make their often underutilised premises profitable. After capitalising on private pool rentals, users are now renting indoor spaces for up to 150 euros per hour. As one homeowner confesses: "I don't like having strangers in my home, but it's still money"

Enia Gómez

Monday, 5 January 2026, 19:48

Oh, to be able to enjoy a 70-square-metre private penthouse located just ten minutes from Atocha station in Madrid. Or maybe an infinity garden in Valdemorillo or an elegant villa in the residential area of El Bosque in Villaviciosa de Odón.

Celebrating a birthday or a farewell party for a work colleague no longer means hiring an entire venue with no special appeal. Online platforms such as Cocopool offer a unique alternative: renting out terraces and private living rooms inside occupied villas by the hour.

Spacious and well-kept spaces, equipped with music, loudspeakers, sun loungers, bar, barbecue and sometimes even a swimming pool, to which, in some cases, the use of the living room and kitchen inside the property can be added.

The same place could also be transformed into the setting for a family reunion, an improvised coworking session or even a small retreat for a group of friends. The rental can be for one, two, three or even four hours, with prices starting at 50 euros per hour, 150 euros in the case of large groups.

Of course, let's not forget that, for most of these bookings, the homeowner remains in the property during the event, effectively sharing the space with the renters. This is an aspect that some hosts still don't know if they will ever get used to the idea. As in the case of Elsa, a user of the aforementioned website since the end of August.

"I looked at my house, so big. I thought it could be put to more use," she tells ABC. The idea came about after a conversation with a friend from Cantabria who was considering converting her house into a country guest house. "But that would involve a lot of money," she says. It was then that she wondered whether there could be an alternative to at least renting out her pool by the hour. "I looked it up on Google and.... And ta-da!" This Madrid-born homeowner rents out her garden as well as the living room and basement of her home in Galapagar at prices starting at 20 euros per hour and reaching 100 euros in the case of groups of more than 50 people. She received her first booking just one week after signing up for the app.

The notion of hourly rentals for a terrace and living room came to Cocopool at the end of this summer as a natural step forward in its initial business model. With this expansion, the company seeks firstly to de-seasonalise demand, until now closely linked to the summer because of the rentals being private swimming pools. Secondly, to offer more options to hosts with large homes, penthouses or indoor spaces suitable for meetings and other gatherings, with the aim of giving owners a money-making opportunity to make more of their often under-utilised facilities. Since its launch, the company now has more than 300 gardens and terraces available, as well as 65 indoor spaces, 20 in the region of Madrid. According to the company, the sign-ups continue to grow.

The spaces are mostly rented out for social gatherings, such as birthdays, dinners with friends, baby showers, family reunions and barbecue days. Also, for holding smaller, professional events, such as company celebrations or team-building activities, especially among small- and medium-sized companies that are looking for more informal, cosier environments than restaurants or traditional coworking spaces.

The profile of those who book these spaces corresponds mainly to groups of friends and families aged between 25 and 45, mostly city dwellers. While the majority of current users are Spanish, the platform also notes the growing presence of foreigners, especially in cities such as Madrid and Barcelona. The hosts tend to be individuals - families or couples aged 30 to 55 - with terraces, gardens or spacious rooms in a good urban location. The most popular spaces are terraces of between 30 and 80 square metres that are equipped with a barbecue and living rooms of between 25 and 80 square metres, with a dining table for approximately eight to 12 diners and where the property's kitchen can also be used.

Elsa explains that, in her case, she severely restricted the type of celebrations that could take place in her home. She excluded, for example, events with attendees in their 20s and 30s and ruled out any party where alcohol would be consumed. Only family gatherings. In fact, her first booking, in September, was for a birthday party (70% of the website's bookings are for this type of celebration) for 15 people, made up of girls aged 15 to 16 and accompanied by their parents. Elsa says she has also turned down other requests: "A girl wrote to me asking if she could rent my house on a regular basis to hold jazz concerts there. I thought that was crazy, so I said No.".

70% of bookings are for birthday parties on one website

Elsa confesses that renting out her home is not entirely a comfortable experience for her. "I don't like having strangers in my home, it scares me to feel that strangers are coming", she admits. Even so, she decided to rent part of her home by the hour, "always through the platform, which guarantees me that, in the event of any problem, the responsibility would fall on them". That protection is, she says, what gives her a certain peace of mind. Her first experience was uneventful. Still, she is adamant that no one feels at ease when their personal space is invaded. In her case, the decision was made purely out of economic necessity. She lives with her husband and children and saw this option as a way of earning extra income: 150 euros for three hours, in the case of her first booking. "It's money", she sums up.

Private swimming pool rental

Swimmy, the leading French private pool rental platform - founded in 2017 by Raphaëlle de Monteynard - told ABC last summer that "the boom in private pool rentals responds to a growing demand for moments of closeness and tranquillity at affordable prices". In fact, between 2023 and 2024, the number of pools registered in the application increased by 20%, from 5,000 to 6,000. Moreover, the number of registered users soared from 270,000 to 370,000 in the same period, a 37% increase.

The hosting website acknowledges that, if you work hard on the app, you can earn quite a lot of money per month, without having to deal with long-term rentals: an average rental period of three to five hours, depending on the type of event or renting to large groups of people, say 12 per booking. In fact, according to the company, the average accumulated income is 3,000 euros per homeowner host, "although we have many hosts earning over 15,000 euros and some over 25,000". "This year we are at an average of 420 euros per booking, but we have hosts with an average of more than three times that amount," states the company.