When a minister invokes the solidarity and goodwill of homeowners, then one understands that she has now raised a “white flag” against a problem that plagues all big cities, victims of the consequences of “hypertourism” in recent years. This is exactly what she did Isabel Rodriguezresponsible for housing issues in his government Pedro Sanchezin Spaina country where almost all its cities are experiencing an explosion of the housing crisis, due to the spread of the short-term rental fad and the subsequent skyrocketing of rental prices.

Uprising in a number of cities

It is typical that in addition to the Barcelona problem, which has been known worldwide for years, tenant protests have recently taken place in Malaga, Mallorca, Tenerife and most recently last weekend in Valencia. Of course, the problem of housing is also extremely acute in Madrid, where there are officially 17,000 rental apartments for tourist purposes. And this is only the official number, because of course there are also “undeclared” ones of unknown number.

At the moment an 80 square meter apartment in the Spanish capital costs an average of 1,600 euros per month, with the average salary at 1,300 and the lowest at 1,134. It is obvious that these prices are prohibitive, while desperate students talk about rents of 500 euros in “holes”, where only a bed and a table fit.

The law was not implemented

Of course, the responsibilities of the conservative local government in the Spanish capital are also big here, which among other things sold former social housing to a large real estate management company, with the result that they immediately demanded increases of 150 to 700 euros in the predetermined rents. Also, the Madrid government effectively did not implement a provision of the new national legislation from 2022, which spoke of freezing rents in so-called “Crisis Zones” and left them freely to the will of the owners. On the contrary, the measure had been applied in areas of Barcelona and had managed to contain or even a slight drop in rents in 2023.

The increases in the cost of housing are now considered a bomb on the foundations of society and are not unrelated to the rise in the percentage of Spaniards living below or on the poverty line, which is estimated at 26.5%.

Nationwide protest on Sunday

In any case, the Sanchez government minister faced the wrath of the so-called “Tenants’ Union”, who called on her to resign, admitting her failure. This association together with trade unions and other social organizations have announced a large protest rally for the coming Sunday 13 October in Madrid. They are also studying the measure of a “strike” of tenants, i.e. the refusal to pay increases, which are arbitrarily demanded by companies or private owners. Something that around 900 tenants are already doing, refusing to accept the increase unilaterally imposed on them by a large real estate company.

However, according to scientific studies, the problem has long-term roots and is due to the very low number of social housing in the country, which has stopped being built for about 15 years. They make up just 2.5% of the total, when for example in the Netherlands their percentage reaches 30%. For the country to reach the relative EU average of 9%, more than 1 million new homes would be needed. Which, of course, cannot be the case of a government and a four-year term alone.