Barajas has made it onto the podium of the best places to live in Madrid: it is one of the districts most highly rated by its residents in the latest City Council Survey on Quality of Life and Satisfaction with Public Services, and it is one of the few districts outside the M-30 ring road that still has average rents below those of the city’s most expensive neighborhoods. While the debate on housing focuses on the center and the great icons of the north, this “suburban” district proves that it is possible to have a remarkable quality of life without paying the rents of the Salamanca-Chamartín axis.
The 2025 municipal survey, conducted by the Directorate General for Transparency and Quality with 8,593 interviews (around 400 per district), reveals that Madrid residents give the city an average score of 7.7 out of 10 for satisfaction with living in Madrid. Within this overall high rating, Barajas is among the highest-rated districts, in the leading group alongside Salamanca, Chamartín, and Hortaleza, with scores around or above 8 out of 10 when asked about satisfaction with the neighborhood. In other words, its residents not only approve: they are clearly happy with their daily lives, above the city average.
Barajas: outside the M-30, but with “consolidated city” services
Editorial credit: m.e.s.t.o.c.k / Shutterstock.com
One of the keys to Barajas’ success is its hybrid position: physically outside the M-30, but enjoying many consolidated city services (Metro, commuter trains in some neighborhoods, schools, health centers, local shops) and, at the same time, more tranquility and less density than the center. Residents appreciate the sense of security, the presence of green spaces (such as the area around Juan Carlos I or the parks in the historic neighborhoods), and a neighborhood life that remains intact despite the airport next door. All of this is reflected in the ratings given to aspects such as cleanliness, maintenance of streets and squares, and overall satisfaction with the district, where Barajas consistently ranks above the Madrid average.
While housing is becoming the biggest problem for Madrid residents—ahead of traffic and cleanliness—Barajas appears in real estate reports such as Fotocasa’s as one of the districts where rents have fallen most sharply in 2025. According to the most recent data, the district has seen a year-on-year drop in rents of around 13.7%, which keeps it among the most affordable areas in Madrid alongside Moratalaz, Villaverde, Villa de Vallecas, and Puente de Vallecas. This combination of perceived quality of life and more moderate prices than in the center or the north makes Barajas an attractive “outsider”: it is not the cheap neighborhood with the most complaints, nor the expensive one where only a few can afford to live, but an increasingly coveted middle ground.