# Catalonia AI housing vacancy initiative

> Live situation record from CLSTR: https://clstr.news/situations/catalonia-ai-housing-vacancy-initiative
> Updated: 2026-08-20T09:53:04.000Z. Sources: 5. Developments: 2.

The Generalitat de Catalunya is developing an artificial intelligence system to identify vacant homes across Catalan municipalities. Commissioned to the Centre Internacional de Mètodes Numèrics a l’Enginyeria (CIMNE), the project aims to increase rental market supply by detecting unoccupied properties through the cross-referencing of data such as water and electricity consumption, municipal registries, and local council information.

This initiative seeks to address the difficulty of quantifying vacant housing, which includes second homes, seasonal accommodations, and tourist rentals. For example, in Tarragona, data shows that 15.85% of housing remains unoccupied for most of the year. By utilizing AI, the government intends to reduce the necessity for physical inspections and plans to create a map of vacant housing prevalence starting next year to better understand territorial distribution.

## Timeline

### 2026-08-20: Catalonia implements VR for prisoner rehabilitation and AI for housing tracking

Catalonia is utilizing virtual reality to rehabilitate gender violence offenders and developing AI tools to more accurately track empty housing across the region.

2 sources. https://clstr.news/cluster/catalonia-implements-vr-for-prisoner-rehabilitation-and-ai-for-housing-tracking

### 2026-08-17: Catalonia to use AI to identify vacant homes

Catalonia is developing an AI-based system to identify vacant homes by analyzing utility consumption and municipal data to help increase the rental housing supply.

3 sources. https://clstr.news/cluster/catalonia-to-use-ai-to-identify-vacant-homes

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Cite as: Catalonia AI housing vacancy initiative. CLSTR, https://clstr.news/situations/catalonia-ai-housing-vacancy-initiative