The latest guest on the podcast has a great virtue and a great problem. They are the same. It’s sincere. Maybe too sincere. “I go to the media like someone who goes to the gym,” he admits. Have fun and sweat your shirt off. “I don’t need to look good to anyone except my wife, my children and myself.” And it shows. This week, visit Read the newspaper for 20 minutes Gonzalo Bernardos (Barcelona, 1962), doctor in economics, author of 39 books and Espanyol fan, “but not a little, a lot, a lot”.
For Bernardos, the economic news of 2025 is “the rise of stock markets around the world”. According to him, “the stock markets are overvalued”. “When will they fall? I would like to know,” he laments while recognizing that this year he has made quite a few “gains”. “In my stock portfolio I only have a few companies, I have liquidated all the banks and I am waiting for it to last so I can buy again.” The teacher has a mantra: “I leave the last euro to someone else.”
At the national level, the economist believes that the most notable thing of the year is “a government that makes mistakes, mistakes and more mistakes in the real estate market.” When Pedro Sánchez came to power in mid-2018, only 2.2% of Spaniards considered housing the main problem, according to the CEI. Almost eight years later, in October 2025, “this percentage rises to 37%, making it the greatest concern of the population”.
“The rise in property prices is due to low supply. It will continue to increase in 2026, 2027 and a few more years, but not by 15%”
Bernardos explains the housing problem as if he were in one of his classes: “The main reason why prices are increasing is that the offer is rare. It’s a structural cause. Will house prices collapse if this low supply persists in the coming years? No,” he predicts.
And he continues: “In 2007, 59% of minors between 16 and 30 years old owned housing. In 2024, this figure fell to 27%. In other words, there are many young people who have not bought housing and who wish to do so. A beastly reserve demand”, he underlines. These young people “were in the rental market, which was becoming more and more expensive, but not at the current stratospheric levels”. SO, “the real estate boom belongs to young people, who buys mainly with the help of parents.
Another reason which, according to him, increases the price of housing is the squat. “In this country, for the moment, “The squatter has more rights than the owner.”, Gonzalo laments.
“Anyone who argues that squatting isn’t a problem tells you, ‘Look, there are few complaints.’ Of course, if you have a police friend, he will recommend that you not report it, and solve it yourself. » It is cheaper to “use a specialized company to negotiate with tenants the possibility of leaving your house,” explains Bernardos and gives the following example:
“In Catalonia, if you file a complaint and the tenant appeals, it actually takes 23 months. If you charge him 1,200 euros in rent, you will lose practically 30,000. It is more profitable for you to negotiate and pay 3,000 euros for the squatters to leave. But the fact is that you often find a small gift: a destroyed house,” he illustrates.
Meanwhile, the professor warns, “the owner will sell his house and others, if he owns them. a tighter rental market and price increases.
Looking to the future, Bernardos does not foresee very significant changes. “In 2025, only 150,000 homes will start to be built. Developers have more demand and are increasing prices. The problem shifts to second-hand housing and we will end the year with a 15% price increase. First key: the low supply on the sales market. Second key: no one has done anything to stimulate housing.”
“We are assured of 2026, 2027 and probably another year with an increase in prices. But not to 15%. Less and less and especially in high-end areas, the increases will border on inflation.” prediction
BERNARDOS RECIPES FOR HOUSING
Bernardos thinks he could solve the housing problem “in no time” with 3 measures; The problem, he says, is that current politicians are unwilling to implement them because they would lose votes.
“First of all, Promoters must take advantage of this. As? On the one hand, give them the guarantee of purchasing land for 50% of the surface area of this land. On one condition: the price must be a little lower than the market price. And on the other hand, the public administration does not have to build housing. Because every time they are carried out, a significant portion of people do not pay and the care is not the best. I suggest prioritizing the purchase.”
Second measure, “in Spain there is a lot of land”, we must use Urban planning agents so that this land “goes from agricultural to residential status in 3 years”. And third, building permit: “If they don’t give it to you in 3 months, administrative silence and beyond, the current deadlines of 2 years destroy the profitability of the promoter.”
“The real estate sector alone contributes 53 billion in taxes”
“What is not possible is for the administration to finance itself with housing. More than 40% of the price of housing is made up of taxes, if I count from the moment the land is agricultural until its sale. Imagine if we told the administration to regulate the price, but not to collect the taxes. From 300,000 euros, that would amount to 180,000, I’m talking about 3 and 4 bedroom houses.”
“Is the administration going to do that? No, because just counting what the construction sector contributes in taxes, it comes to 53 billion. Isn’t the government saying that housing is the main problem? Okay now!”
“PEDRO SÁNCHEZ IS INTERESTED IN THE POSITION. PERIOD”
For the economics professor, who was candidate on the lists of CFP during the 2019 Barcelona municipal elections, “a Pedro Sánchez is interested in the job, period. Whether he has to please Puigdemont or Junqueras and generate an amnesty is true, regardless of whether he said the opposite before. If housing is important to Sumar now and they want to do populism with housing… It doesn’t matter. “The important thing is the votes.”
“The government thinks that what matters is not the facts, but the story: we are going to deceive the population and tell them that the measures requested by Sumar are effective. No, rent control has never worked, if it had ever worked it would have been there forever. In Spain, rent controls took place from 1921 to 1985 and destroyed the rental market.“, sentence.
This is part of the podcast, where Bernardos also makes an economic assessment of 2025 and gives his opinion on other topics, such as the increase in the minimum wage or the absence of general state budgets in Spain, extended from 2023. You can watch the full episode on YouTube, Spotify or Ivoox.
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