Spain is dealing with “social emergency” housing with poor rents

Blanca Castro puts a building helmet before opening the door on her kitchen. Inside, the ceiling contains a large opening that falls water and appears as if it may collapse at any moment.

Since the kitchen is unusable, Planca has to wash its dishes in the bathtub, and the cooking area has been improvised with a gas camp in a corner of its living room.

Many of her colleagues from tenants in this apartment are suffering from the Atocha rating station in Madrid. They say that the company that owns the building has stopped responding to basic maintenance requests in recent months, as it informed them that it will not renew their rental contracts.

“The current rental bubble encourages many senior owners to do what they are doing here,” says Blanca. “It is the disposal of the current tenants who were here a long time ago, in order to obtain short -term tourist apartments, or simply to raise the rent.”

Blanca and her tenants have pledged to stay in the building despite what they see as efforts to be presented by their owners, who were not available to comment on this article.

The last five lease contracts, during which the rent is fixed, but this field from central Madrid has witnessed the high costs of housing in recent years.

“For another house like this (in this field), I must pay a double or more of what I pay now,” says Blanca. “This is not applied.”

She and her neighbors are among the millions of Spaniards who suffer from the consequences of the housing crisis caused by escalating rental costs.

While salaries have increased by about 20 % over the past decade, the average rent in Spain has doubled during the same period. There was a 11 % increase during the past year alone, according to the figures provided by the Property Portal Idealista, and housing became the largest concern for the Spanish.

It also generates anger, as the Spaniards move to the streets to ask the authorities to make housing more expensive. On Saturday, April 5, thousands of people are expected to protest in Madrid and dozens of other cities.

A report issued by the Central Bank in Spain found that nearly 40 % of families who rent are now spending more than 40 % of their income on accommodation.

“The current problem is a major defect between supply and demand,” says Juan Felin, from the ideal. “The demand is very good, and the economy grows a lot, but the supply diminishes very quickly.”

Mr. Villén offers Barcelona, ​​as the reputable rental increases have become. He adds that nine families were competing to rent every property in the city five years ago, as this number increased to 54. Increasing rental costs during that time by 60 %.

“We need to build more real estate,” says Mr. Villain. “On the rental side, we need more people ready to rent their property, or ready to buy real estate, renew them and put them in the rental market.”

The central government described the situation as a “social emergency” and agreed that the lack of the show leads the crisis. Last year, the Ministry of Housing estimated that the country needs between 600,000 and a million new homes over the next four years in order to meet the demand.

This need was pushed partially in part through the arrival of migrants who joined the workforce and helps to advance the economic growth of Spain. The Ministry also pointed to the lack of social housing, which is 3.4 % of the total offer, among the lowest rates in Europe.

In 2007, at the height of the real estate ownership bubble, more than 600,000 homes were built in Spain. However, the high construction costs, the lack of available lands and the deficiency of the workforce were all factors in restricting construction in recent years, with less than 100,000 homes in 2024.

The government has taken measures to stimulate construction and provide lands to build homes at reasonable prices, while trying to ensure that public housing does not end in the private market, which was formed in the past.

But the Socialist Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, also expressed his willingness to intervene in the market to control rental prices.

In a recent event to celebrate the opening of 218 low -rent apartments in the southern city of Seville, he announced that the Spaniards “want us to behave, and they want the housing market to work according to the law of reason, social justice, and not the law of the forest; they want to ensure that the immortal funds and speculators are not similar.”

The central government and a number of local departments have identified short -term residence places as part of the problem. Last year, the Canary Islands, Balearic Islands and many cities on the mainland witnessed protests by the local population against the increasing tourism numbers, with its impact on the main complaint rental costs.

Several halls of the city responded by announcing plans to restrict the grants of the tourist scene permits, while Barcelona is going further, which resulted in the licenses of all short -term apartments registered in the city by 2028.

The Sanchez government also pushed the parliament the housing law, which includes a roof for rents in the so -called “high tensions” areas where prices are climbed from control. Political resistance means that the legislation is implemented so far in the northern regions of the Basque country, Navarre and Catalonia, and its success is open to discussion.

Socialist -led regional and central governments have indicated a 3.7 % decrease in rental costs in “high tension” areas in Catalonia since the front of the cover there a year ago, as Barcelona witnessed a decrease of 6.4 %.

However, critics warn that the maximum rented has led to the spread of the owners and caused the withdrawal of thousands of real estate from the market.

“On the side of the show, the problem is that all the measures taken by local or national governments are inconsistent with the owners,” says Mr. Felin. “Even people who were building new real estate were selling their property because they did not want to enter the rental market.”

Another initiative proposed by the central government that sparked the debate is a tax of up to 100 % on the real estate bought by non -residents outside the European Union, on the basis that these homes are often barely inhabited. This is a scale, if it is released, it will severely affect British buyers.

The conservative opposition accused the government of being very heavy through its approach. However, with the inhalation of general anger on this issue, there are many others who want the country’s leaders to behave more screaming.

Gonzalo Alvarez, of Sindicato de Equilinas e inquilinos, an organization that carries out the rights of tenants, agrees that the shortage of available homes is a problem, but insists that building more is not the solution.

He says: “There is a lack of housing because the houses are kidnapped – on the one hand of the tourist apartments, and on the other hand, all the empty apartments belonging to the eagle boxes and banks.” “So there is no need to build more, this is not necessary. But the housing that has been kidnapped.”

His organization from the government wants to impose a mandatory and fundamental discounts on rent on the owners and aims to organize a blow at the level of the country by tenants who see the participants refuse to pay their rent.

Mr. Alvarez says: “The (central and local) governments do not specify any limits.” “So who will go? We will have to do so.”