'Competitivehousing'

The housing crisis has acquired a dimension that goes beyond the social and economic sphere, to the point that it has precipitated the early calling of elections. This situation highlights the magnitude of a problem that increasingly conditions the present and future of the country. For too long we have addressed housing mainly as a social issue, which it is, and of great importance. But today it has also become a problem for our companies and their competitiveness, since the difficulty in accessing affordable housing conditions where we can live, but also where we can work, what professional opportunities we can accept, and what capacity companies have to attract and retain talent.

For this reason, at Pimec we share the need to adopt measures to tackle the housing problem, protect vulnerable people, and expand the affordable housing stock. We need more housing available, not less, and for this, legal certainty, regulatory stability, and trust are necessary; public policies must find the balance between the necessary social protection and the creation of conditions that allow for increasing supply. Both issues are not incompatible; on the contrary, they must be part of the same strategy.

Increasing supply requires acting on the different factors that today hinder the availability of housing with a long-term vision. At Pimec, we also defend public-private collaboration to promote the development of affordable housing. Administrations and the private sector must be able to combine resources and capacities to provide a more agile response to a need that already affects the economy as a whole.

The problem therefore requires a transversal perspective. We cannot continue addressing it with isolated measures and regulatory changes that hinder medium and long-term planning. We call for the Transversal Pact for Housing as the space from which to build shared, stable, and sustainable solutions over time.

This transversal perspective implies understanding that we are not only facing a problem of the functioning of the housing market, but a factor that directly conditions the country's competitiveness. Housing policies must also be part of economic policies and incorporate the reality of the business fabric in decision-making. It is here that housing and competitiveness become part of the same equation.

And we must also do it from a business perspective. When a person cannot afford to live reasonably close to their workplace, the problem ceases to belong exclusively to the housing sphere. It becomes a problem of employment, talent, productivity, mobility, and competitiveness. The lack of affordable housing forces many people to live further and further away from their work, increases travel times and costs, and worsens mobility problems. At the same time, companies have more difficulty filling certain vacancies, retaining professionals, and growing where there are opportunities.

This reality especially affects SMEs, which have fewer tools to compensate for a high cost of living and the mobility difficulties of workers. When finding housing or being able to commute to work every day becomes a barrier to accepting a job or developing a professional project, this barrier ends up being transferred to the company as well. The housing crisis thus becomes a drag on business growth.

We must overcome the idea that housing policies and economic policies travel on separate paths. Facilitating access to affordable housing is also making economic policy because it favors labor mobility, facilitates hiring, contributes to retaining talent, and allows companies to develop their projects where there is activity and opportunity. There cannot be a fully competitive economy if the people who make it possible cannot access housing.

The challenge is too important to be addressed from partial positions; we need collaboration, dialogue, and policies that combine social protection, legal certainty, economic viability, and an increase in supply.

A society that cannot offer housing solutions to people who work, undertake, and generate activity will hardly be able to have competitive companies. We must understand that the housing crisis is also a business competitiveness crisis. From this arises the concept of competitihousing: two realities that we can no longer address separately because the future of one directly conditions that of the other. Without affordable housing there is no talent, without talent there is no growth, and without growth there is no competitiveness. Solving the housing crisis is, therefore, an essential condition to strengthen the future of our SMEs and our economy.