Spain’s acute housing crisis is increasing pressure on Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez as his government’s measures yield little results and frustration among beleaguered citizens boils over.
“Finding a rental property has now become a minefield, especially for young people,” 24-year-old Juan Lozano told AFP.
“There is hardly any supply and when there is, the prices are sky high.”
Lozano was among about 22,000 protesters who gathered in central Madrid on Sunday to express their anger over rising costs and the scarcity of new homes, and to threaten landlords with a rent strike.
Housing has been an unsolvable riddle for successive governments in Spain, which remains scarred by the 2008 property market crash that accompanied the global recession.
But since the Covid-19 pandemic, the crisis has become “unsustainable,” Lozano said.
According to online real estate platform Idealista, the price of a square meter of rent has increased by 82 percent over the past ten years.
That increase far exceeded average wages, which rose only 17 percent over the same time, according to Spain’s National Institute of Statistics, making finding a home mission impossible for low-income households.
The problem is exacerbated by the shortage of social housing, which accounts for only 2.5 percent of the total stock, compared to an EU average of 9.3 percent.
– Living becomes a ‘fantasy’ –
The crisis has dogged Sánchez’s fragile minority government, which prides itself on defending the working class, as tensions flare with left-wing allies in parliament and irritated citizens grow increasingly impatient.
“The rents are suffocating us and no one is doing anything,” says the national tenants’ association.
“The majority of society has been paying for the housing crisis for too long, while a minority is getting rich at the expense of their jobs.”
Trade union CCOO said access to housing had become a “fantasy for large parts of society” and urged the state to enshrine the right to “a decent and suitable home” in the constitution.
The government introduced a landmark law in May last year that plans to boost social housing, cap rents in areas with the greatest market pressure and penalize owners who leave their properties vacant.
But the legislation has so far failed to rein in galloping rent increases, which reached 10.2 percent annually between July and September, with peaks of 15 percent in major cities such as Madrid and Valencia.
The Bank of Spain says 600,000 new homes are needed by the end of 2025 to meet the needs of the population, but estimates fewer than 100,000 will be built annually.
The law has also led to a standoff between Madrid and some regional governments responsible for its implementation.
– ‘Absolute priority’ –
Sánchez on Monday defended his government’s record, saying housing resources have increased eightfold since he took office in 2018, but conceded that “magic wands” would not solve the “difficult” problem.
He said housing would be his government’s “absolute priority” and wanted to avoid a “Spain with rich owners and poor tenants”, announcing a €200 million housing package for young people.
The government recently announced the end of so-called “golden visas” that grant residency to foreigners investing in real estate, which critics say encourage speculation in major cities.
It has also pledged to tackle the proliferation of tourist apartments, which reduce the number of homes available on the market, and to accelerate the construction of new homes.
For many Spaniards tired of the false dawn, more needs to be done.
“We have had promises for years” but “few results,” Laura Barrio of the collective “Stop Desahucios” (Stop Evictions) told AFP.
“Structural reforms” are needed to solve the problem “from the roots,” she added.
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