We make floors, we make floors!
Catalan society is engaged in a battle of uncertain outcome against the housing shortage. Access to decent housing is one of the most acute social pain points. Owning property or not is, today, the element that most marks the difference in social status. And in life's peace of mind.
Faced with this, public policies are struggling to find the right balance between facilitating the private sector's actions – new and social housing supply needs to be increased – and regulating rental prices to avoid excluding the majority of the population, especially young people, but not exclusively, from housing access. On one hand, synergies with developers are sought, and on the other, rent caps are imposed, which, despite this, continue to rise, albeit more slowly. All avenues must be explored. We are facing a housing emergency.
If during the Civil War the Generalitat's posters saying "Let's make tanks!" became famous, now it's time to urge everyone to make flats: "Let's make flats!" Just this Friday, it was announced that town councils and developers have submitted 310 plots in the Government's second call for public land reserves to build affordable rental housing. According to the Generalitat, these plots have the capacity for 11,000 flats. They belong to 126 municipalities, and 40% of the land is located in the metropolitan area of Barcelona. In the first call, 670 plots were submitted, with the capacity to build 22,000 flats. The governmental objective – the promise – is to reach 50,000 homes by 2030. It is not clear that the pace is right. In cases where everything goes smoothly, it takes about three years from acquiring a plot to the building becoming a reality.
Last October, the Government maintained that 31,000 of the 50,000 flats were already "underway", but according to the Chamber of Contractors of Public Works of Catalonia, the effective bidding is much slower. In parallel, despite the rises in Euribor –the reference index for interbank loans that sets the price of mortgages–, the buying and selling market shows great dynamism. Between January and June, 57,349 transactions were formalized in Catalonia: it is the first semester with more activity since 2007, just before the bursting of the real estate bubble. But population growth continues to be stronger than the growth in housing supply, and at the same time, many families cannot even think about buying anything. And there is yet another relevant factor: the majority of purchases are of second-hand flats, a segment that accounts for 80% of transactions.
Experts are calling for long-term strategies that, on the one hand, guarantee access to housing for everyone – with social rent or other formulas – and, on the other hand, provide security to small owners when renting out their flats and encourage work in the real estate sector, including non-profit social developers. All this in an environment heavily influenced by tourism and speculative buying. Precisely this week, the Council of Statutory Guarantees has amended the Government's law that sought to curb speculative buying because it understands that it harms property. It is a wake-up call that expresses the immense complexity of the housing crisis. Action must continue on all fronts.