https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4031-0949
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Abstract
Spain has traditionally shown one of the lowest levels of participation in the rented market within the housing system in Europe. Several authors have argued that housing policies oriented toward facilitating housing access have not paid enough attention to the development of the sector, except for decreasing its regulation. During the last decade, Spain, as many other European countries, has witnessed a relative increase in demand for rented dwellings and subsequent rent increases. A debate is taking place where possible regulation and alternative ways of increasing the rent supply are being discussed to ease the persistent problem of housing access of Spanish households. We argue in this paper that rent regulation cannot be decontextualised from the housing system, especially in countries like Spain where the rented sector has acted as social housing and tenants’ financial vulnerability is high. We distinguish between measures with short term effects such a rent regulations and interventions addressing the lack of rent supply with a longer impact. Finally, we advocate for a national framework that allows enough regional and local freedom to adequately solve their rented housing situation.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
3 In November 2020, rents dropped in their monthly variations in all ten districts of Barcelona. The district with the largest monthly decline was Nou Barris (−4%), followed by Gràcia (−3.5%), Sants - Montjuïc (−2.8%), Les Corts (−2.7%), Ciutat Vella (−2.7%), Sarrià - Sant Gervasi (−2.1%), Sant Andreu (−2%), Horta - Guinardó (−1.9%), Eixample (−1.6%) and Sant Martí (−1.1%). Rents also dropped in 16 of the 21 districts with monthly variations in Madrid. The district with the largest monthly decrease is Usera (−4.5%), followed by Arganzuela (−4%), Moratalaz (−3.8%) and San Blas (−3.4%), among others. The districts with the highest monthly increases are Ciudad Lineal and La Latina with 0.8%, each. (Fotocasa, Citation2020)
4 SOCIMIs is the Spanish name for REITs: Sociedades Anónimas Cotizadas de Inversión en el Mercado Inmobiliario (Public Limited Investment Companies in the Real Estate Market).
5 For example, in recent years, the Barcelona City Council has frozen the granting of permits for new tourist apartments, while it has also promoted the closure of more than 2,000 non-registered tourist-use dwellings. Palma has prohibited tourist rentals in multi-family homes since July 2018.
6 Following the Index Price reference of Idealista, a real estate intermediary.
7 SAREB: The company was founded in November 2012 to help clean up the Spanish financial sector and, in particular, the banks that became financially distressed as a result of their excessive exposure to the real estate sector.
8 In June 2020, a new official statistic on the rented market was introduced by the Ministry of Economy. The National System of Reference of Rent Prices put forward a price index for the Spanish territory based on 11.2 million rent contracts signed between 2015 and 2018. This new tool allows for the identification of areas with extreme pressure on rent prices and thus offers the opportunity to intervene in order to soften this tension. Up until now, the measurement of rented prices was left in the hands of real estate agencies, who, rather than using the transaction price, were measuring the supply price and were thus creating a certain bias while not including the possible negotiation of buyers and sellers.