The housing situation in Spain is that it continues to suffer problems in a sector that is constantly changing. The main problem is the price and the great barrier of access to housing. Spain is a country that tends towards buying property, but difficulties in accessing financing, especially young people, push the rental market. This has led to an imbalance between supply and demand for rent.
The future of housing depends on increasing the offer and giving rental aid.
According to a study by the Fundación Alternativas, it has revealed the different improvements in access to housing, thus avoiding social exclusion. Among the measures proposed by said foundation are:
Encourage the construction of affordable rental housing.
Increase aid in households.
Improve the financing of promoters.
Rehabilitate old buildings.
Today, rental housing has doubled in a few years, there are more than three million rental homes, going from 11% to 18% in the state park.
Another issue that generates controversy is the control of rental prices. Experts warn that you have to be careful with said price control because the real estate market is owned by private owners and is not dominated by companies, as it happens in other countries of the EU.
The interest rate policies that have been applied in recent years have only inflated house prices, especially rent prices.
With an increase in prices of 32% between 2014 and 2019, a rise in rents of 42%, while the rise in wages in this period has been 5% and -6%, which has meant an effort rate for families and tenants.
“The main problem with the boom in rental prices in Spain has been the dissolution of the construction of the old Officially Protected Housing (VPO) and its limited replacement,” as Julio Rodríguez, doctor of Economic Sciences, has stated. “It is not normal that there is no public rental park.”
With VPO housing, the middle class could access property. But now, that middle class has been left out and has almost no access to the rental market.
The problem lies in the disappearance of public housing policies in recent years. Until the outbreak of the crisis, the objective of raising 75,000 VPOs a year, mostly dedicated to property, was met, but that has disappeared and has caused the lack of social housing, and access to property acquisition for many people.
Roca has tried to emphasize that 85% of social housing has been promoted by the private sector, and that new models of public-private collaboration should be offered to promote rent.
Housing policies currently have no public funding. If the private developer does not get profitability (public funds), he will not go into building public rental housing.
According to Beatriz Corredor, current president of Red Eléctrica and Minister of Housing between 2008 and 2010. “If a massive social housing policy is not implemented, in 25 years we will have an excluded society, dramatic and in the law of the jungle, with millions of excluded people and a high marginalized population ”.
More and more people, especially those under the age of 30, cannot access decent housing, only through their means.
The financial sector and developer must change the forms of financing and bet on green credits and new credits focused on the rehabilitation of buildings.
The new housing plan presented by the Ministry of Development proposes a subsidy for the purchase of housing for young people of 35 years:
Aid to lost funds of up to 10,800 euros with a limit of 20% of the value of the apartment.
To be able to access it, young people will have to charge less than three times the IPREM, that is, less than about 1,600 euros a month, not have another home and that this will be their habitual residence.
A measure criticized by experts for being a direct aid, which can increase prices, and boost buying versus renting.
“According to all economic analyzes, it is a measure that does not benefit the buyer or lessee, but rather the seller and the lessor, since prices will automatically rise”
The Minister of Development, Íñigo de la Serna, admitted during the presentation of the plan that there is a rise in rental prices due to limited supply compared to the increase in demand in recent years. And that the solution would be to increase the rental housing stock. The minister explained that there will be aid to develop new housing developments for rent. An idea that clashes with the proposal to subsidize the purchase, which would reduce the housing stock.
