Plan RESIDE 2025 opens new real-estate opportunities in the city of Madrid. In this second part of our informational guide, we focus on the positive measures aimed at increasing housing supply and revitalising underused properties.
Owners of old buildings, investors with vacant offices, holders of obsolete private facilities, and developers interested in affordable housing will find key takeaways here.
Broadly speaking, the Plan introduces incentives to convert offices into housing, enables the conversion of catalogued private facilities into affordable rental or coliving, and even contemplates time-limited tourist lodging in certain listed residential buildings. All of this is, of course, subject to the technical and planning requirements we outline below.
1) Incentives to convert offices into housing
Madrid has a significant stock of outdated office premises and tertiary-use buildings. Plan RESIDE 2025 seeks to give them a second life by facilitating their change of use to residential through urban planning incentives and regulatory flexibilities.
The City Council has announced urban-planning advantages designed to make these conversions viable (for instance, better utilisation of existing envelopes and usable floor area).
In practice, a developer could, for example, make the most of the recognised volumetry of a legally built office block to generate a feasible residential scheme, including the number and size of dwellings compared to what current rules might otherwise allow.
The Plan also removes or softens certain burdens that typically make change-of-use projects more expensive. For example, creating new parking spaces will not be mandatory simply because a tertiary building is converted to residential use. Under ordinary rules, converting offices into homes could trigger an obligation to add parking; this requirement is exempted, reducing costs and simplifying the transformation.
There are further planning flexibilities: if the building is lawfully built but now out of code (alignments, heights, etc.), the existing volumetry can be retained for the conversion, channelling any necessary adjustments through a Special Plan.
In other words, you may reuse the property as it stands, provided the project and works meet current technical standards and respect any heritage protections that may apply.
That said, converting offices into housing is not automatic: it requires a technical project and the proper licences. The change-of-use is generally full-building (with limited exceptions for compatible ground-floor commercial use).
You will need to process the change-of-use licence and meet habitability, safety and accessibility standards (ceiling heights, natural light and ventilation, acoustic/thermal performance, accessible lift, etc.).
Before jumping in, a viability study—legal and technical—becomes essential to confirm that the asset can meet these requirements (or to identify the necessary works).
At Quikprokuo, we assess the specific building conditions, licensing pathway and capex so that your office-to-residential conversion is both safe and profitable.
2) Obsolete private facilities: from abandonment to Coliving or affordable rental
Another window of opportunity opened by Plan RESIDE 2025 targets catalogued private facilities that are unused or obsolete. Think of former private colleges, residences, clinics or similar dotational buildings that have long been stuck in a low-utility public-facility use, unable to lawfully convert into dwellings.
Plan RESIDE (official press note) allows their conversion to residential when the goal is affordable rental or coliving/community living.
Naturally, this transformation is conditioned to safeguard the public interest and heritage values, striking a balance between real-estate development and social outcomes:
Rehabilitation and heritage protection. The change of use is allowed only if the developer commits to an integral, respectful rehabilitation.
In fact, a Special Protection Plan must be processed and approved by the City to define the heritage scope and the conservation of protected elements.
Put simply, in exchange for allowing conversion of that old convent, clinic or college into housing, the City asks you to restore it and preserve its historical essence.
Permitted uses: affordable rental and coliving. The resulting dwellings must be allocated to rental (not sale)—typically affordable—and/or coliving formats (see: https://www.quikprokuo.com/es/contrato-alquiler-por-habitaciones-coliving/).
This implies a policy commitment to provide accessibly priced housing, contributing to the city’s supply. Coliving, shared homes with curated common services, can also work here as a flexible housing model between individual flats and traditional residences.
Buildability limits. The Plan clarifies that converting these catalogued dotational buildings to residential will generally allow you to reuse what was lawfully built (including the materialised floor area under licences prior to the 1997 PGOUM), but not oversize the project.
In plain terms: you may optimise what exists, not expand the building beyond what the legal framework recognises.
Notably, the City has identified around 210 private buildings of this type in the Historic Centre as potential beneficiaries of the measure.
For impact-minded developers and long-term investors, the pipeline is attractive: restore heritage, deliver affordable rental/coliving, and unlock value in assets that would otherwise remain idle.
Case by case, you will still need to study viability, obtain the planning instrument (Protection Plan), secure licences, and meet ongoing obligations (e.g., affordable-rent conditions, maintenance of protected features, etc.).
Our team assists with the urban-planning procedure, helping you balance business and compliance.
3) Listed residential buildings in the centre: 15-year tourist lodging, then back to homes
We already mentioned the figure of the listed residential building located on non-tertiary streets in the centre which, after comprehensive rehabilitation, can be dedicated entirely to tourist apartments for 15 years.
We revisit it here as an opportunity because, for certain owners and investors, Plan RESIDE 2025 enables a medium-term, full-building tourist operation—provided you undertake the integral refurbishment.
During that period, the property functions like an aparthotel or a block of licensed short-stays, with no resident neighbours in the building. This can generate significant returns over the next decade. Once the 15-year period ends, as mandated by the rule, the building must revert to residential use—that is, to conventional dwellings.
It is important to stress that this possibility only applies to catalogued residential buildings and not on major commercial thoroughfares. The underlying idea is to incentivise comprehensive rehabilitation in the historic fabric while ensuring that, after that period, the building returns to the regular housing market, now fully restored.
As an investor or developer, if you are evaluating this option, you should consider capex, operations, and the fact that the tourist licence has a fixed expiry. You will need a clear exit strategy: for example, selling the refurbished units as upscale residences or letting them under conventional residential leases.
At Quikprokuo, we help dimension the project from licensing and works to operation and exit, so your scheme succeeds at every stage.
4) Technical rules, planning tools and due diligence: study feasibility before you act
All these opportunities come with planning and technical requirements that must be studied in advance. In general terms:
Planning instruments and special licences. Some schemes will require ad hoc planning instruments. For instance, converting a catalogued dotational asset requires a Special Protection Plan approved by the City.
Converting a lawfully built but out-of-code building may require a Special Plan to adjust volumetry. In other cases, it may be enough to process the change-of-use/works/activity licences, but Urban Planning will always be involved.
It is essential to know which procedure applies in your case and how long it may take.
Technical and heritage compliance. When turning old buildings to new uses, you must comply with the Spanish Building Code (CTE), municipal ordinances, and any catalogue sheet if the building is protected. Issues like universal accessibility (installing lifts, step-free access), acoustic and thermal performance, ventilation/daylighting minima, etc., can determine feasibility or cost. In listed buildings, there will be limits on what can be altered (façades, staircases, original structures, ornamentation).
That is why, before you buy or transform an asset, a combined legal-technical due diligence is advisable to identify opportunities and risks.
Economics and long-term obligations. Equally important is to model project returns alongside any ongoing commitments. If you commit to affordable rents, you need to know the maximum rent you will be allowed to charge and whether you can recover your investment under that cap. If you obtain a 15-year tourist licence, plan what happens in year 16 (reversion to residential), including costs (operational, taxes) and your payback period via sales or leases. A scheme may look attractive on paper, but the numbers must check out.
In short, Plan RESIDE 2025 opens a range of possibilities to rebalance Madrid’s stock towards residential while making viable projects that would otherwise stall—if you carry out the right urban-planning and technical due diligence before committing capital.
A more residential Madrid and how we can help
The measures in Plan RESIDE 2025 reflect Madrid’s commitment to increase the housing supply, protect heritage, and redirect tourism pressure to where it causes less negative impact. For savvy owners and investors, this does not have to mean lost value: an underused office building can become quality housing; an obsolete private facility can be coliving or affordable rental; and in a listed residential block, a time-limited tourist operation can finance a comprehensive rehabilitation that ultimately returns homes to the market.
At Quikprokuo, we want to be part of these positive transformations.
Our urban-planning lawyers are ready to advise you from feasibility and licensing (change of use, Special/Protection Plans, tourist lodging) through to heritage-sensitive works, affordable-rent compliance, and contentious-administrative defence if needed.
Contact us and tell us about your project. We will help you move forward with legal certainty, and with benefits for you and for the city.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Each building and initiative requires a tailored legal-technical assessment.
