The Government buys 1,064 apartments from InmoCaixa for €87 million for affordable rental
The first major operation, initiated by the government of Pere Aragonès, was a package of 450 homes.
BarcelonaThe Catalan government has agreed to purchase 1,064 apartments from Inmocaixa, the real estate subsidiary of CriteriaCaixa (the investment holding company of La Caixa), for €87.2 million. These homes will now be public and offered for affordable rent, as announced this Wednesday by the President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, at a conference at Fira Sabadell. This means the government will pay, on average, around €82,900 per apartment. The thousand apartments that the Generalitat has now added to its public housing stock are located in Barcelona, Cornellà de Llobregat, Hospitalet de Llobregat, Mataró, Montornés del Vallés, Sant Just Desvern, Sentmenat, Sitges, Terrassa, Tordera, Olot, Lleida, Tarragona, and Sabadell. The transaction will be carried out through the Catalan Land Institute (Incasòl).
This new acquisition of apartments, the largest ever made by the Catalan government, adds to three other transactions that the government had already closed with this entity in recent years. The first, of 450 homes –and that the ARA advanced—, was started by the previous government led by Pere Aragonès, while the other two, of 214 and 179 homesThese have recently been completed. In total, the partnership between the Catalan government and Inmocaixa has resulted in almost 2,000 more homes for the public housing stock.
The transaction involving 179 homes, completed last November, included developments located in Lleida and Mollet del Vallès, and also in Banyoles.where several tenants live on rent strikeThis action, initiated seven months ago by the Tenants' Union, has so far brought together a total of 68 families from Banyoles, Sentmenat, Sitges, and Palau-solità i Plegamans. This action, aimed at denouncing abusive clauses in rental agreements, was expected to soon include tenants from the apartment blocks the Catalan government will acquire in Lleida. In mid-October, a delegation from the Tenants' Union, which included representatives of the strikers against La Caixa bank, met with Salvador Illa.
The Tenants' Union declares "victory"
That is why today, the Rental Companies Union considers this operation a "resounding victory" for the rental strike against La Caixa. "The rental strike has been sustained by 71 families from developments in Sentmenat, Sitges, Banyoles, and Palau Solità i Plegamans, who have been on strike since April 1st and have withheld €257,631.73 in rental payments," the union explained.
At the time, regarding the tenants' actions, sources at InmoCaixa explained that they always seek "a balance between protecting their portfolio and being sensitive to cases of proven economic and social vulnerability among tenants." According to the Generalitat, InmoCaixa has been carrying out a responsible and gradual divestment process of residential properties since 2021, prioritizing sales to the same tenants who originally wanted to purchase them, as well as to local and regional governments.
Changes in the real estate management of CriteriaCaixa
In June 2024, CriteriaCaixa announced a strategic plan with whichIt aimed to increase its assets under management from €27 billion to €40 billion by 2030.The plan also envisioned a broad restructuring of the real estate business, "with the divestment of part of the directly managed portfolio and reinvestment in indirectly managed assets with recurring income and greater potential for appreciation." Many of the developments that have now passed into public hands were built between 2002 and 2012 through La Caixa's Social Welfare Fund under a two-phase subsidized housing scheme: an initial ten-year phase, during which a price was guaranteed, and a second phase, in which the owners could sell or rent the homes at a stipulated price. It was the implementation of this second phase that met with opposition: a year ago, hundreds of tenants in fourteen subsidized housing buildings constructed by the Social Welfare Fund warned that the entity intended to evict them or raise their rents.