Javier Burón: "In housing, the boomers have enjoyed a system that was meant to benefit them."

BarcelonaJavier Burón (Basauri, 1970) is a renowned housing expert who has advised various governments in Europe and America. He was the housing manager at Barcelona City Council and deputy minister for the Basque Government. He is currently the managing director of the Navarrese public housing company and has just published the book The housing problem (Arpa Editores).

Why is it so difficult to access housing?

— It's very difficult because we've historically done many things wrong, and the result is that there's very little coverage left for millennials and Zs. We have few and inadequate instruments for public intervention. And there's another set of things that I try not to devote much time to in the book, but that we're all familiar with: the battle in big cities between short-term uses and long-term uses, i.e., residential uses. Space is taken away from these uses, and prices are rising.

What brought us here?

— Franco's regime was a fascist dictatorship, that's undeniable, but in terms of housing, he had a plan: to generate the largest number of homeowners. He fulfilled it and created a real estate industry that didn't exist yet. But we started later, when public housing policies already existed in Europe. Felipe González's regime also had a plan: housing is a market commodity and the market manages it well. They said it should be liberalized, that the State should leave. And, of course, then Aznar came along and said that all of Spain could be developed, and a lot of housing was created.

The book says that Spain is a country founded on bricks and mortar and, at the same time, that it is one of the countries with the least housing regulation.

— From then on, we had the decade from 1998 to 2008, and we already know how it ended. The bubble burst, almost wiping out Spain, destroying many families and creating less-than-honest business opportunities for certain investment funds. And here you have three layers: my parents have had a generational experience with housing, and I, being Generation X, have had another, which is a disappearance of public intervention that left us at the mercy of the market with rising prices. I bought during the bubble with very affordable mortgages.

And the third?

— Starting in 2015, the Spanish economy began to recover, and the phenomena we mentioned were occurring in large cities began to become evident and widespread. And here comes the next generation, offered market-based rental housing: limited private rental stock at high prices, and we begin to see workers with relatively high salaries who must share apartments. And then politics and public administrations take a long time to react.

Why has it taken so long? Housing is a European problem, but we're worse off here.

— It's taken us so long because what intersects here is social class and generation. And why are we worse off? There are Central European and Nordic systems where, when they created their welfare states after World War II, housing was a pillar of the state, and they have intervention instruments that we don't have here and that we must create.

What are those instruments?

— These models have an infrastructure and a set of housing options, which can be public or private. The problem is that they are not widely available on the market and are managed at popular, affordable, social prices. In Paris, it's 20%, in Berlin, it's 30%, and in Amsterdam, it's 50%. Less attention is paid to the Nordic countries, but in Helsinki, it's 40%. They have an infrastructure and an ecosystem of permanent providers of social and affordable housing. And we don't.

There is already a consensus here that it is necessary to build public housing.

— What there isn't is much criticism from the private sector that wants to do it, but at the same time, and paradoxically, ecosystems like the Catalan one show that we already have the ingredients. In Barcelona, there are good public companies, there's the cooperative movement in transfer of use. And from private capital, which wants to get involved long-term in housing, there's a small system of investment funds and managers. There are those who put up the money and those who know how to manage housing. So, we need to create state regulations that say, "If you invest in this and do so within these rules, you can make a profit." And this isn't being done; there's a certain debate in Spain among specialists about why we don't create regulations for housing associations Spanish.

And why hasn't it been done yet?

— I'm sure I'll get some critical comments from some friends, but the PSOE is dragging its feet on housing. At least now some Socialist leaders are raising their voices. Rent control took them five years.

The book takes a generational view. You say there's a class conflict, but also a conflict between generations.

— The boomers They have made a certain socioeconomic trade towards well-being; it is true that they have sacrificed a lot, as they say, and there is a feeling of "We deserve what we have." But the boomers They've benefited from a system that was meant to benefit them. And they look at everything from their life experience and think everyone else is lazy. The whole "Because he consumes more, he can't afford a home" thing. There's a bit of that, and a bit of "No one's going to touch the value of my homes."

You're sending a harsh message to citizens who live off real estate income.

— It's not that these people don't make money, but that they make less and generate a somewhat flatter real estate exploitation scheme, without so much speculation and without so many price increases. On the one hand, and returning to the boomers,Are they all property owners? No, but statistically, it's the norm. And not everyone who exploits a property is a speculator, but there are speculators. Therefore, most speculators are boomersThey must be explained that they will have to give up a little bit of their well-being.

Are you optimistic?

— I'm so pessimistic that I'm optimistic. It's impossible for us to commit suicide. We're not risking our future, but part of our present in economic terms, and then in social terms. In fact, the progressive blog is risking its legislative term and its ability to lead the political process.