How to Find and Finance a Rural House for a Coliving (Without Speculating)

Before you start: this is general guidance from people who run a rural coliving, not financial, tax or legal advice. Grants, loans and their rules change, and we can't guarantee that what follows is complete or current for your project. Before you sign an agreement with an owner, apply for a grant or take on a loan, check the official call and go through your plan with a qualified adviser (an accountant, a gestor or a financial adviser). Last reviewed: 5 November 2026.

In short: in rural Catalonia the houses exist, but they rarely appear on property portals. You find them through the town hall and through people who know who owns what. Financing the renovation is almost never one loan: it's a mix of public grants, ethical finance and the community's own capital. Both parts go better with a non-speculative proposal, one that brings people to live in the village for years and treats the owner as a partner, not a seller.

Why the house is the hard part

Catalan villages of fewer than 2,000 people have at least 16,683 empty homes, as we explained in the rural paradox. So the problem isn't a lack of buildings. It's that most of them are closed, run-down, or owned by families who don't need the money badly enough to take a risk on strangers.

A 2023 study by Universitat Jaume I in rural Castelló, just south of Catalonia, describes the same knot: renovation often costs more than the house is worth on the market, inland rents are too low for owners to recover the investment, and many owners are wary of renting to people they don't know (Valencia Plaza). Any plan you bring to an owner has to answer those three worries.

Part 1: finding the house

• Start at the town hall. A 2025 guide promoted by ARCA and Catalonia's rural development groups gives councils criteria to build a census of their empty homes and ways to bring them back into use (EbreDigital). Ask whether your council has one, and who to talk to if it doesn't.
• Talk to people, not portals. The mayor, local associations, the person behind the bar: they know which houses have been closed for years, and why.
• Look for the right size. A coliving needs space for private rooms plus shared ones: kitchen, a work room, somewhere to sit together. At Kalart Seeds we usually look at large rural houses of 6 to 12 rooms.
• Check what's around it. Shops, a train or bus stop, a school if families might join. A beautiful house an hour from the nearest bakery is a different project.
• Ask about permitted uses early. Before you fall for a house, ask the council's planning office what the building can legally be used for. It saves months of disappointment.
• Offer the owner something they need. Many owners can't afford the renovation themselves and don't want to sell the family home. A clear plan, a long-term use agreement or rural masovería (you renovate, the owner charges little or no rent) and a real commitment to look after the house can open doors that money alone doesn't. The options are explained in our guide to legal models.

Part 2: financing the renovation

Conventional banks tend to see a coliving as an unusual risk: shared ownership, rooms instead of flats, a community instead of a single tenant. Most projects end up combining several sources.

Public grants for rural renovation

In 2026 the Agència de l'Habitatge de Catalunya ran its first rural renovation programme, with €5 million for the 590 municipalities classed as rural under the Statute of Rural Municipalities. It had three lines: owners renovating for their own or family use; affordable rental, non-profit housing cooperatives and homes ceded to councils; and public housing.

For cooperatives and affordable rental, the grant covered 50–80% of the works, capped at €25,000–40,000 per home, up to six homes per applicant (3Cat). The homes had to have been empty for at least two years, be built before the end of 1999, and become someone's habitual, permanent residence for at least ten years. Tourist lets and second homes were excluded.

Applications ran from 18 May to 10 September 2026, so this call is closed. The Generalitat has said it plans further calls over the next three years, up to €20 million in total (NacióDigital). Watch the official page and ask your council.

EU rural development funds (LEADER)

LEADER is the EU's rural development programme, run in Catalonia through 11 local action groups (in Catalan, grups d'acció local). Its 2025 call, worth €7 million, supported small businesses, tourism activities, rural heritage and services to people (Generalitat). Whether a coliving fits depends on each group's strategy, so contact the one for your area before you plan around it.

Ethical finance

Ethical banks and cooperatives already finance collective housing in Spain. In Madrid, the Entrepatios cohousing cooperative financed its building with Triodos Bank and Fiare Banca Etica, which put in about €3.3 million between them (Interempresas). Coop57, a cooperative of ethical financial services born in Catalonia, raised €2 million in thirteen hours in June 2025 to fund cooperative housing (El Salto). They will still ask hard questions about your numbers. They are just more used to collective projects.

The community's own capital

In cooperative housing, members usually make an initial contribution and then pay a monthly fee for use. Cooperatives can also issue participatory securities (títols participatius), a kind of small loan from supporters. Sostre Cívic, for example, issued 902 securities of €500 each to help fund its Cal Paler Nou project in Cardedeu (conditions). People who believe in a project can back it directly, and the house stays out of the speculative market.

How we see it at Kalart

Kalart has lived in an old farmhouse at the foot of the Montseny since 2018. We didn't build it; we gave an existing house a new life. A few things we've learned shape how we think about finding and paying for a house:

• Trust comes before the contract. Owners and neighbours need to see who's moving in and how the house will be cared for. That takes visits, coffees and time.
• Restore before you build. A house that comes back to life keeps a piece of the village alive. It's also the only kind of project the 2026 grants supported: new build was excluded.
• Think in years, not seasons. Our minimum stay is one month and many residents extend. Public money now asks for ten years of residential use; that long view suits a community far better than a weekend let.
• Keep it out of speculation. Cooperative use-transfer, masovería and community capital all keep the house in the hands of the people who live in it. That's the core of what Kalart Seeds stands for: non-speculative housing, restoring before building, regeneration and shared governance.

Who this is for (and who it isn't)

It's for founders, community builders and owners of an empty rural house who want a project that lasts and that the village is glad to have. It isn't for anyone looking for a cheap property to flip or a fast return. Grants and ethical loans exist precisely because these projects are slow and modest.

The honest part

Grants cover part of the works, not all of them, and calls open and close. The 2026 call required a habitual, permanent residence, so a coliving built around monthly stays may not qualify, while a cooperative whose members live there might: ask the Agència before you count on it. Ethical lenders still need numbers that add up, which is why the business plan comes before the loan application. And some houses simply can't be saved at a reasonable cost. It's better to find that out early.

How Kalart Seeds helps

Kalart Seeds is our learning-by-doing incubator for people who want to create the next generation of intentional rural colivings. It covers business models, financing and legal structures, including housing cooperatives, masovería and use-transfer. We look for large rural houses, favour renovation over new build, and support each new project through its first year. Kalart isn't a financial intermediary: we don't lend or invest, but we help you understand the options. The resident director profile needs no initial capital. Each month we select one person, who lives at Kalart for four weeks with accommodation covered by a scholarship (travel and meals are on you).

Ready to go from traveller to community creator? Apply to Kalart Seeds. Rather try rural community life first as a resident? Apply to stay at Kalart.

Keep reading: our step-by-step guide to starting a rural coliving in Spain, the legal models for a rural coliving in Catalonia and the rural paradox of empty homes. Questions about living at Kalart are answered in our FAQ.

Reminder: this article is general guidance, not financial or legal advice. Grant rules and deadlines change; check the official call and talk to a qualified professional before making any financial commitment.

Sources: Rural renovation programme 2026 (Tràmits Gencat) · Grant lines and caps (3Cat, May 2026) · Future calls (NacióDigital, Mar 2026) · Law 8/2025, Statute of Rural Municipalities · LEADER 2025 call (Generalitat) · Empty homes guide (EbreDigital, Apr 2025) · UJI study on rural Castelló (Valencia Plaza, 2023) · Entrepatios financing (Interempresas, 2018) · Coop57 housing campaign (El Salto, 2025) · Sostre Cívic participatory securities