The activist Ada Colau began to discover since 2015, as mayor installed in the Plaza de Sant Jaume, that the position did not include the key to solving the housing problem in the Catalan capital. Despite her efforts and surely all the good intentions in the world, during two terms she has barely been able to go from applying palliative care to the critical problem of access to housing in sustainable conditions for the majority of the population. And now, eight years later, the leader of the Communs knows that she needs many more tools than the simple will of the first aedile. For example, a law passed in Congress. History will not include in her legacy, at least until now, having solved such a pressing problem.
Pedro Sánchez, with the accurate political instinct that he has already amply demonstrated, has given the final push to a new housing law that comes in handy at the start of the long electoral campaign that will occupy the rest of the year. But this smell of the president should not necessarily be received in a pejorative way. Isn't it true that housing, together with the rise in the prices of basic necessities, is the first and main problem for the majority of Spaniards? What better time than elections, especially if they are municipal, so that aspirants to manage cities and the government explain what recipes they have in their folders to face it?
The problem is not that Sánchez proposes a housing law. In any case it should be its content. But that is a much more complex matter. To use the language in use in recent times, those who defend that the best law is the one that does not exist, that is to say that everything should be left in the hands of the market, are just as populist as those who believe that with a regulation that imposes ceilings on rental prices and expanding the supply of social housing resolves the issue.
In the first case, the very fact that the conditions of access to rental housing (those affected are not even thinking about buying it anymore) in the main cities are progressively worsening and condemning a large part of the population to vital impoverishment, especially, but not only, young people, is a sufficient argument to demand the intervention of public administrations.
History teaches that leaving it in the hands of the market could be as much as ensuring that it will get worse without remedy. Let's take a quick look at the recent past. That of the last Spanish real estate bubble, one of the largest in the history of world capitalism.
The mantra of the governments of José María Aznar (PP) and José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (PSOE) was summed up in that the key was to expand the offer. A recipe that seems to be from elementary school, but that sometimes only serves to strengthen a simply ideological prejudice. In those happy years, the more the supply grew – of developable land, apartments under construction and for sale – and the aid – tax deductions, low interest rates, aid for young buyers – the more prices rose. Over a decade, Spain built more flats than Germany, France and Italy combined. More supply meant more bubble. Until it exploded.
Then, when the house of cards collapsed, we learned that prices actually went wild because the European Central Bank (ECB) did not raise interest rates for eight years (2000-2008) to help a struggling Germany. That the banks of that country sent hundreds of billions of euros, which they did not invest there, to their Spanish colleagues so that they would indiscriminately give credit to some citizens who had to work up to their eyebrows to get a roof (although many, but always the least, they also took advantage to make money). The Spaniards were subjected to a thick forced diet loaded with debt and brick. All to end up being branded as wasteful and wasteful.
With the crisis, the prices of the flats plummeted. But that did not present an opportunity for the percentage of owners to grow. Well, since citizens were losing their jobs and receiving lower wages, they had to forget about buying and had no choice but to console themselves with rent. In the last decade, the percentage of the owned housing stock has fallen, while that of rent has risen.
To this was added the emergence of urban tourism, especially international tourism, a substitute for the depressed internal demand, spurred on by new technological applications and finance. Overall, a high growth in demand that triggered prices. A drama for the residents.
As an addition, in the conditions of low interest rates that have prevailed in Europe since the Great Recession until a few months ago, the large international funds sought compensatory returns in the territory where tourism, rentals and financial engineering converge. Although they do not represent the majority of the market, they do decide its dynamics, especially that of prices.
As a final climax, the current price inflation. It puts pressure on landlords, eager to make up for the loss of purchasing power by getting more income from their rental flats. Just when his tenants, who were already on the edge, suffer price increases that eat away at their meager income. Once again, the seriousness of the low level of wages in Spain is highlighted. Insufficient to assume current rents, impossible for purchase, denied for savings.
In reality, as sometimes happens with people's health, housing is a symptom of other serious problems in society and the economy. Too many powerful forces pressing on some municipalities that make war with blank weapons. That is why in no big European city has the solution yet been found. And at the same time, they all resort to similar measures to try. From the freezing of prices to the promotion of social housing. But, of course, it is not possible to dream of a balanced solution at municipal level. Now it will be tested if the same happens in the case of central government regulations.
