Via del Calvario, Lavapies neighborhood, a central area of Madrid. Studio of 20 square meters – 14 of which usable – announced by a well-known real estate agency on Idealistic, one of the most used portals to look for a house. On the fifth floor, no lift, the kitchen worktop is next to the bed. Opposite, a bathroom, without a door. Price: 650 euros per month. Malasaña, another neighborhood in the center of the Spanish capital that has suffered a profound process of gentrification in recent years. In via del Tesoro, a studio apartment of 25 m2 is for rent, 22 of which are useful. Fourth floor with lift. Cost: 950 euro + 150 if you also want the garage.
The housing crisis has been at the heart of the debate in recent weeks in Spain and will continue to be one of the most discussed topics during the electoral campaign for the regional and municipal elections of May 28, which officially begins this Friday. The cost of housing, as a result of the skyrocketing rents and mortgages, is one of the main concerns of the Spaniards. According to a survey by the agency 40dB made for The country and the To be, worries 82.8% of the interviewees. But not only that, this situation also worries the European Councilwhich in a report following the visit of the commissioner for human rights Dunja Mijatovic identified the housing problem as one of the most serious and to be addressed “urgently”. The low supply of affordable social housing and the high cost of renting and buying due to political choices that paved the way for investment funds. “The house shouldn’t be considered an asset accessible only to a few. Access to decent housing is a human right central to the full enjoyment of most other rights,” the report reads. For this he urged the government to quickly adopt the law on housing, currently under discussion in the Senate, which is expected to be approved later this month.
What does the new housing law include? – This is the last major compromise that the government of Pedro Sanchez had assumed and that he wanted to resolve before the year-end general election. After months of negotiations, it was approved by the Congress of Deputies on April 27 and is now under discussion in the Senate. Among the main aspects are rental price limits: the maximum increase in the event of contract renewal is set at 2% until the end of 2023 while in 2024 it will be 3% and from 2025 a new index will be established to fix prices in “stressed” areas. That is, areas that meet at least one of the two conditions set by the new standard: cost of the mortgage or rent plus basic expenses exceeding 30% of the average household income or the purchase price of the property or the rent increased three percentage points higher than the Consumer Price Index in the previous five years. In areas “under stress” the number of properties of a natural or legal person necessary to consider it “great owner” will be able to go down from 10 to 5 with the aim of limit speculation and hoarding of real estate.
The brokerage fees of the real estate agency for the rental of an apartment will be paid by the owner and not by the tenant. In addition, the increase in the cost of rent through the imposition of new expenses, such as waste taxes, condominium fees or extra costs of any kind. Vacant houses will be more expensive: to encourage the use of housing that has been empty for more than two years, the municipalities will be able to apply an increase in theProperty tax to owners, which varies from a minimum of 50% to a maximum of 150% based on how long the property has been vacant or the number of empty properties owned by the same owner.
Owners of housing in “stressed” areas will be able to access Irpef discounts on rent returns: they will be 50% and may increase up to 90% if the new signed contracts provide for a 5% rent reduction compared to the previous contract. Vulnerable households will have better protections because the agreement between landlord and tenant is prioritized. In case this is not possible, a period of time is allowed for i social services can offer decent housing solutions to the family. The evictions no pre-set date and time.
It is planned to devote more land to the construction of social housing. The goal is to ensure greater access to housing, especially for young people to allow their emancipation. In recent weeks, Sánchez has announced the making available of 183,000 of social housing intended for rent. While some have already been built, others are in various planning stages and will take some time to build.
The problem of public housing in Spain – The question of public housing has been neglected for a long time in the Iberian country. Joseph Maria Raya, professor of applied economics at the Pompeu Fabra University of Barcelona, explains a Ilfattoquotidiano.it that this great absence “is due to a bad practice especially in the first years of democracy, when millions of public housing were built but all intended for ownership. They were sold and the public sector was left without social housing. Furthermore, from 2010 to today the construction of these structures has been minimal”.
The data ofHousing and Land Observatory of 2020 confirm the problem. On average in the European Union, social housing represents 9%: Spain stops at only 2.5%, Italy at 3.7%. “The measures announced so far are on track but they are not enough. To stay in line with European standards we should multiply by six the current public housing (about 300,000 properties). This means building more than 1,500,000 houses. There is a need for a long-term policy, attentive to the housing issue, because this problem cannot be solved in a year”, says Raya. For the expert, the new housing standard has both positive and negative aspects. “All measures that increase the supply of rental homes, such as incentives to landlords, an increase in public housing or the IBI on vacant houses, are positive. But there are negative ones such as rent price control, which goes in the opposite direction because it will reduce the supply of rental apartments,” he explains.
In its annual report released this week, the Bank of Spain explains that controlling the price of rents could generate undesirable effects in the medium term. “The economic literature has shown that, even if price controls are capable of reducing the cost of rents in the short term in regulated areas, this policy can generate adverse effects on the supply of rental houses and the segmentation of the real estate market”, reads the document. In particular, it considers that the offer of housing on the market and the quality of the same could decrease, and could cause a change in the offer and an increase in prices in non-regulated areas, especially in the long term.
An unprecedented housing crisis – The housing emergency in Spain has many facets but above all concerns rents. “Since the outbreak of the financial crisis, the demand [di alloggi in affitto] has increased and, in the absence of a sufficient offer (both social and private), prices have increased, especially in areas closest to large metropolitan areas such as Madrid and Barcelona”, continues Raya. The expert says that this problem mostly affects i youngunable to access decent home-owned housing and with wages that have grown less than rents.
A study of photo housepublished last April 24, reveals that the Spaniards have intended the 43% of their gross salary to pay rent in 2022, up from 40% in 2021 and 30% in 2012. The report, titled “Ratio of wages and rental housing in 2022” (Wages and Rental Home Report 2022) is based on average salary data from job vacancies posted on the platform InfoJobs and on the average rental prices of the group’s Índice Inmobiliario Fotocasa arrived. “The rental price is today at an all-time high, showing the largest increase in the last 17 years,” says María Matos, spokeswoman for Fotocasa. “The increase causes a wage effort for the citizen that exceeds the levels recommended by the main European control bodies, which establish that no more than 30% of the salary should be allocated to the cost of the house. At the moment we are 10 points beyond the figure of 10 years ago”.
The scenario is not the same throughout the country: the most critical situation is recorded in the Balearics (58%), in Catalonia (58%) and in the community of Madrid (57%). Only two regions are below the 30% threshold: they are Castile and Leon and Extremadura, with 24% and 25% respectively. If we look at the provincial data, the residents of Barcelona allocate 62% of their gross salary to rent, while in Gipuzkoa 59%. “Especially in the most ‘stressed’ areas, it is clear that the problem of accessing rented accommodation is getting worse”, concluded Matos.