From rescuing banks to rescuing people
Rent caps in new housing law ‘will help control prices in towns affected by boom in tourist accommodation’
THE VALENCIA region has 19% of the 50,000 homes that will be made available to rent at affordable prices by the national government.
The properties are from the stocks of the so-called ‘bad bank’, Sareb, set up by the government to manage assets from the banking system restructuring which took place after the 2008 financial crisis.
Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez made the announcement in Valencia on Sunday, on the heels of confirming he will have enough support to pass the new housing law (see p22), when he also promised to increase the nation’s stock of public housing from just 3% to 20%.
He pointed to studies which indicate that 70% of the inequality in Spain is the result of difficulty accessing decent housing, the nation is fourth out of the EU 27 in terms of having to make the most financial effort to afford rent, and prices per square metre increased by 45% from 2014 to 2021 for renting, compared to 11% for house purchasing.
Spain also has the third highest number of empty homes in the EU, where the average stock of public housing is 9% and some countries have 20%.
In comparison, the proportion of households occupied by social renters in England in 2022 was 16.6% and on Wednesday the National Housing Federation (NHF) highlighted widespread problems with overcrowding due to ‘a chronic shortage of social housing’.
Sr Sánchez argued that reaching the 20% threshold will also help to control prices, in order to make housing more accessible, especially so that young people can leave their parental home – given that the average age in Spain is almost 30.
The Socialist party (PSOE) PM blamed this situation on ‘neo-liberal’ policies of the Partido Popular (PP), which turned ‘a right into a market’ by freeing up land, leading to the real estate bubble and speculation, corruption and tax breaks that only benefitted promotors, and privatising public homes for vulture funds.
On Tuesday the Cabinet approved making 21,000 homes available to town halls and regional governments; offering social rents to families already living in 14,000 homes belonging to the Sareb; and promoting construction of 15,000 public homes on land owned by the Sareb.
Minister for social affairs Ione Belarra, of coalition partners Unidas Podemos, said this was ‘very good news’, even though her party had been calling for this since the start of the term of office, and argued that all the homes
owned by the Sareb should be made available for social renting.
Valencia government president Ximo Puig revealed the region has 8,897 of the 46,542 homes owned by the Sareb, and 3,403 of its ongoing construction and renovation projects (24%).
He reminded that the Spanish people had to pay for the destruction of the region’s banks after the financial crisis, but now this is being turned into an opportunity ‘to serve the social majority’.
Local party Sumando por Torrevieja – a left-wing alliance of Izquierda Unida, Podemos and Alternativa Republicana – also supported the move to ‘rescue people’ with the assets from banks rescued by the former PP government of Mariano Rajoy.
Spokeswoman Antonia Martínez called for the local town hall to determine exactly how many assets the Sareb has in the municipality, ‘as there could be more than the 71 listed on its website’.
She also said the rent caps in the new housing law will help to control prices in towns most affected by the boom in tourist accommodation, like Torrevieja.