Boom gone bust: No takers for 11 mn European homes
LONDON: More than 11 million homes lie empty across Europe - enough to house all of the continent’s homeless twice over.
In Spain, more than 3.4 million homes lie vacant, in excess of 2 million homes are empty in each of France and Italy, 1.8 million in Germany and more than 700,000 in the United Kingdom.
There are also a large numbers of vacant homes in Ireland, Greece, Portugal and several other countries, according to information collated by the London-based Guardian. Many of the homes are in vast holiday resorts built in the feverish housing boom in the runup to the 2007-08 financial crisis - and have never been occupied. On top of the 11 million empty homes, many of which were bought as investments by people who never intended to live in them - hundreds of thousands of half-built homes have been bulldozed in an attempt to shore up the prices of existing properties.
Housing campaigners said the “incredible number” of homes lying empty while millions of poor people were crying out for shelter was a “shocking waste”. said David Ireland, chief executive of the Empty Homes charity, which campaigns for vacant homes to be made available for those who need housing. “It will be shocking to ordinary people.
There are 4.1 million homeless across Europe, according to the European Union. Freek Spinnewijn, director of FEANTSA, an umbrella organisation of homelessness bodies across Europe, said it was a scandal that so many homes have been allowed to lie empty. “You would only need half of them to end homelessness,” he said. “Governments should do as have been abandoned by construction companies across the country
During the housing boom, which saw prices rise by
44% between 2004-08, Spanish builders knocked up new homes at a rate of more than 800,000 a year.
much as possible to put empty homes on the market. The problem of homelessness is getting worse across European Union. The best way to resolve it is to France 2.4 mn UK
7 lakh Portugal 7.35 lakh
put empty homes on the market.”
Most of Europe’s empty homes are in Spain, which experienced the biggest construction boom in the mid-2000s fed largely Ireland 4 lakh
Spain 3.4 mn Germany 1.8 mn Greece 3 lakh Italy
2.7 mn by Britons and Germans buying homes in the sun. In France, latest official figures shows 2.4million homes were empty in 2012, up from 2 million in 2009. GNS