Professor Fernando Cos-Gayón, director of the Housing Observatory Chair of the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV), is forceful in his analysis of the situation of the real estate market in Valencia when he affirms that there is a "very marked deficit of urban land" and warn of the risk of entering into a "housing emergency" for a part of society.
This is how the UPV Chair explains it in its last analysis of the year on the real estate market in the city of Valencia and its metropolitan area, which estimates that prices will continue to rise during 2023 and that the situation could only be reversed "with an ambitious plan effective public housing" and a strategic management of available urban land.
The study explains that the offer has suffered an "unprecedented" contraction, so that the imbalance between the low supply and the great demand is considerable, a phenomenon that not only happens in Valencia but can be extrapolated to the rest of the territories.
The report also observes that the lack of new housing also affects prices and would justify the current high amounts paid in the rental market, even "above the mortgage payment for a new house in all the neighborhoods of the city of Valencia". The reason? The offer of used housing has gone to rent, which has also reduced the offer of that one.
Thus, the study shows that the average residential rental price per year in the city of Valencia is currently 1,201 euros on average, when two years ago the average price was 938 euros. The report also distinguishes the average residential rental unit price by type of room, since 1,112 euros are paid for a studio apartment and up to 1,553 euros for a four-bedroom home, with data from the UPV Housing Observatory Chair.
The study makes an analysis of the demand for new construction; the supply of new multi-family buildings, which in the case of the city of Valencia has registered an increase in the average unit price of housing of 26% compared to the data for 2021; of the offer of new construction in a single-family home and of the offer for rent.
The behavior of the market in 2023 is also the subject of analysis, since Cos-Gayón points out that "in 2023 the price will continue to rise, obviously not in those numbers, but it will continue to rise." The director of the Chair assures that this year has been "exceptional" for the real estate market and he predicts an upcoming year of good health, far from certain news coverage, he points out, "astonishingly catastrophic."
However, this good health of the market collides with a reality that said Chair points out, and that is that there is still a clear problem of access to housing and, here the problem, not only to the first home. "Until a few quarters ago, the group under 35 years of age was the one that had the most difficulty accessing decent housing, but now it is transgenerational in the absence of a sufficient offer of protected housing to buy or rent," the report says. For this reason, they request policies that guarantee access, through direct aid, guarantees for the purchase and unfinanced input amounts, as well as effective public-private collaboration.
There is a risk, the study warns, of entering a situation of "housing emergency" for a relevant part of the population, since they can no longer buy a home or rent a complete one, and several families must share it.
