At work, in meetings with friends and in every television news, the housing crisis has become the unavoidable subject in Spain, marking a year like that main problem of the Spaniards according to the CEI, above politics and immigration. This crisis affects millions of people who see prices continue to rise, making it almost impossible for young people and middle-income families to buy and even rent housing.
And the pressure on pockets is more and more intense: in 2024, Spaniards spend on average around 47% of their salary on rent. At the same time, the purchase of housing has been consolidated as an investment tool, with almost half of the mortgage loans signed aimed at this objective, which further increases competition for real estate and makes it more expensive to have access to your own roof.
The role of population growth in the housing crisis
Jaime Palomera, economic anthropologist and co-founder of IDRA, explain to 20 minutes that, often, the debate on housing is simplified and attributed solely to immigration, supply and demand: “From the outset, it is undeniable that over the last four years there has been an increase in the population: if the population increases, more housing will be needed, obviously, but “If you stick to that, you only see a very small part of the problem.”
For the expert, reducing the crisis to the relationship between population and demand is to simplify a much more complex question: “It’s as if a plane crashed and we said that it crashed because of the force of gravity, and then you attribute everything to the law of Newton And you stop looking at all the factors that had an impact, like weather conditions or the weather, what happened inside the cabin.
The anthropologist believes that “this is easily understood if we look at what is happening in municipalities where the population has not increased, but on the contrary, where there has been either demographic stagnation or demographic decline.” In these municipalities, he assures, “prices are also increasing”, and gives an example: “Cádiz has been losing inhabitants for years, and that does not stop prices from rising more and more”. For him, “The explanation that the price increases because there are more inhabitants is very insufficient.”
“The mathematical correlation between population, demographics and prices does not exist,” insists Palomera. “It is a factor that can influence, but if you look at the group of municipalities in Spain you will see that in many municipalities where there is a loss of population, the price has increased and in some cases it has increased a lot.”
For him, the key lies in “the type of use we give to the house”. Jaime Palomera believes that for years, “Housing has been transformed by governments into a financial assetjust like gold or cryptocurrencies. » From now on, “they are no longer simply places to live, but products with which to enrich oneself”, he denounces.
A “rigged monopoly”: the concept that explains the housing crisis
Jaime Palomera uses the concept of “rigged Monopoly” to illustrate the situation of the real estate market in Spain: “What we are seeing is that our cities are becoming more and more like the game of Monopoly, because There is a series of players who already own properties and who, from a certain point, begin to concentrate more and more houses.s, and those who do not have properties, those who do not have streets on the board, are dedicated to paying rent to those who own the majority of properties,” he explains, “and the more rent they charge, the more properties they buy.
The more rent they charge, the more properties they buy
According to the expert, this dynamic has accelerated since the financial crisis: “Since 2008, we have had an increasingly small social group of individuals and families who already own real estate who, through the rental market and other passive income, At the end of the year, they have a lot species”.
With this liquidity, Palomera explains, “they have no choice but to reinvest in purchasing more assets, because no one has millions of euros in their current account: this money “They invest it in buying gold, in buying stocks, but also in houses.”
The result, according to Jaime Palomera, is “that there are more and more houses in fewer hands and, little by little, inequalities increase.” The parallel with the game is that “if I say that it is a rigged monopoly, it is because the rules of the game are also rigged; it is not a free market” and this is seen, for example, “in what is happening with taxes”.
The specialist explains how the rules favor those who already own properties: “Those who already own properties and are going to buy houses on the real estate market, They pay less taxes than any family looking to buy their first home. If they rent them, they also pay less tax when they collect the rent, and for those rents, they pay less tax than anyone else for their work,” he says.
For him, this reflects structural inequality: “Work income is taxed at 100% in most cases, but If you have apartments to rent, you pay taxes between 50% and practically 0%, depending on whether you are a natural person or have a business. » In addition, if you wish to rent this house for tourist purposes, “you still pay less because you pay practically no VAT, you have it at a hyper-reduced rate”.
The result is a market in which fewer and fewer people concentrate property and where new generations lose their expectations: “We have a monopoly in which, in reality, properties are concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, and where the children of those who own them have less and less hope of being able to buy and also less and less of being able to inherit. »
Actually, eight out of 10 tenants assumed they would never give up this conditionaccording to a study by the Barcelona Urban Research Institute (IDRA), of which he is co-founder.
The children of those who own them have less and less hope of being able to buy
Finally, Palomera insists on the idea that the current market has not intervened: “This monopoly in which we live actually intervened through a multitude of taxes “What they do is make those who live from their work, working families, pay a lot more taxes than those who live from goods and properties that provide them with income.”
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