The high rent has become one of the first problems for young people, preventing them from emancipating themselves, and for the most vulnerable people: some 400,000 families who are at severe risk of residential exclusion because they allocate more than 40% of their income to rent payments, according to a study carried out by Josep Oliver, emeritus professor of Applied Economics at the UAB. Access to housing has also become a political banner. It was the main argument that led Ada Colau to the mayoralty of Barcelona in 2015 and, in the Spanish government made up of PSOE and Podemos, the Housing Law has focused the negotiation of the last two budgets and will be the key to the municipal elections.
The problem, however, has proven to be elusive, and in Catalonia and especially in Barcelona, a political laboratory since 2018 for many of the measures now being considered by law, rent is now scarcer and more expensive, despite measures such as ceilings on rents or the impossibility of evicting vulnerable tenants even if they default on rent. According to a study prepared by the EsadeEcPol Center for Economic Policies, the 2020 Catalan housing law led to an increase of more than 12.7% in the rents of the cheapest apartments, and a reduction in the rental offer of 10%. Today, according to data from the Idealista portal, the rental price in Barcelona is 16.7 euros/m², 60% more expensive than in 2015.
Juan Carlos Amaro, a professor in the department of control and financial management at Esade, points out that "the rental problem is the lack of supply: the administrations would have to take measures to put more homes on the market, which would end up lowering prices as it happened during the pandemic.” On the other hand, he points out, "if the owners are put into difficulties, there will be fewer apartments for rent and the problem will end up being more intense."
In recent years, indeed, some funds have halted their investment in the sector and others, such as the American Blackstone, have begun to withdraw: the fund once had 5,000 rental homes through its subsidiary Anticipa, but has chosen to sell them when the rental contracts expire and you only have 3,000 with the purpose of selling them all. Small investors (owners of less than five apartments) are also withdrawing: the number of landlords who decide to sell their apartments when the contract expires has doubled compared to the average of the last seven years, according to Amat Immobiliaris.
"To solve the rental problem, money must be allocated to make social housing," says Joan Clos, the former mayor of Barcelona who today chairs the Association of Rental Home Owners (Asval). In Spain, he recalls, it is only 2.5% of the housing stock compared to 10% on average in Europe.
"There are no magical solutions to this problem, but effective measures are being opted for, to show that it is being done, without really doing anything," says Clos. In his opinion, the Government with the Housing Law "adopts a generalist approach, trying to regulate the entire market, even that of luxury apartments, and does nothing to solve the problem for those who really need it because they do not have access to the House". In his opinion, the controls will end up causing obscurantist practices, such as payments "in B" or charges for additional services, as was the case when there were limited incomes during the Franco regime.
At the opposite extreme, the Sindicat de Llogateres defends that rent control must be the key measure to guarantee that the rent, at least, stops rising. One of its spokespersons, who preferred not to be identified, assured that it does not reduce the housing supply, but also asked that seasonal rentals (for less than 11 months) be regulated, to which thousands of apartments have been diverted in recent years because they do not is subject to the LAU. The association also requests that the Government expand the housing stock by buying flats in areas where rents are high to allocate them to affordable rent and that owners who have empty flats be persecuted and penalized.
Amaro, for his part, acknowledges that the real estate market has an inertia: it takes years to build apartments and it would take others longer to push prices down. In the short term, to facilitate access to housing, he points out that one way is to "give a direct subsidy to vulnerable families" or, to prevent it from being transferred to income and left by the owners, for the State to rent existing homes and re-rent them to vulnerable families.
Clos also defends the subsidy "for those 400,000 families who cannot pay rent, not for everyone." And Asval has proposed to the Government that it launch a public tender to rent 30,000 homes at a moderate price, open to all types of owners, which could then be re-rented. “This public-private partnership model works well in Dublin. And it is the only way to provide a lasting solution to the housing problem”.
A similar measure has been included by Portugal in its housing shock plan: it will directly rent flats to private individuals for five years to sublet later at moderate prices; will assume the payment of rents to private owners from the third month of non-payment and will deal, if applicable, with the eviction. The plan also includes limiting rents in new rental contracts, gradually extinguishing tourist housing licenses and allocating an investment of 2,700 million euros to build 26,000 homes.
In Amaro's opinion, "solving the rent problem requires that we do both: take steps to help those who need housing today, and have a long-term vision so that finally there is affordable housing and state aid is not necessary" .
The EsadeEcPol study, carried out by professors José García Montalvo and Josep M. Raya (UPF) and Joan Monràs (Fed de San Francisco), highlights that "rent control is a policy with short-term effects, without a budgetary cost direct and easy to sell politically”, which is why he predicts that it will not disappear from the political agenda because it has social support. The study concludes that it is not effective, and is also committed to measures that increase the supply of flats. “These are not miraculous measures, nor surely of immediate impact. But they are effective."
