The legacy of Maricarmen Abascal

Although I am tempted to write with tenderness about what went through my mind yesterday when I heard on the radio that Maricarmen Abascal had died in the hospital, I will not do so. Others who fought by her side and who have stood in the squares of Madrid and Barcelona have been more eloquent, as have some shameless politicians with a lot of nerve.

If now is not the time to review the serious problem that Spain has with housing, when will it be? I understand the rules of capitalism and the market, but in terms of housing, a chilling point has been reached. In the financial sector, there is a lot of liquidity for the residential sectors (everything that has beds, said in the jargon of the real estate sector) and logistics, but they are playing with flammable material: a maxim of the traditional real estate business had been that profits should come from the creation of value and from assuming risks. Building a new neighborhood, rehabilitating centennial buildings, or making a custom house is difficult, and that is why people pay a lot of money for a house. There are also companies that provide building maintenance services or improve their sustainability, and all of this becomes a saving in repairs or energy consumption. Everyone understands this, and it is perfectly understandable that rents should be increased a little if a new elevator has been installed, the facade has been renovated, or radiant floor heating has been put in.

But no improvements were made to Maricarmen's apartment. Let's be clear: it was a strictly speculative operation. The company Urbagestión bought the apartment for 247,000 euros. Doing primary school math, at 500 euros a month, the investment would be recovered in 40 years. This was the calculation a responsible financier would have made. Instead, someone made reckless calculations and speculated that they could recover the investment much faster if they demanded 1,600 euros a month. In a building constructed in 1952, right in the post-war period, a 2026 Monopoly game ran over a whole domestic life, with the invaluable help of laws interpreted to protect investors rather than residents.

Historically, technical careers like engineering and architecture added value to the construction sector and mobilized small investors to build residential neighborhoods, with returns of between 8% and 10% over 10-year cycles. Now the housing market is no longer reduced to the balance between supply and demand; the future value of "assets" in historic cities built over millennia has come into play. In the 21st century, in urban centers, the financial sector obtains 200% profits without physically transforming the city; without moving a single stone, simply by making properties change hands. But if profits come without creating value, cities are exposed to mass evictions of the elderly and workers, externalizing the costs of these displacements to the public sector. You can liberalize a lot of land and promise that licenses will be granted in two months, but if it continues to be more profitable to buy low and sell high, no one will want to set up cranes and direct worksites of dozens of workers that they save if they only need to go to the notary.

I believe Maricarmen was very brave, but the burden of an elderly woman living alone, facing unscrupulous landlords, is something many other grandmothers, widows, or retirees will not be able to bear. Some out of shame, others out of helplessness, and others to avoid burdening their families, will simply have left their apartments. But Maricarmen stood her ground, and behind her, entire cities mobilized. This is probably the most important part of her legacy: the collective strength of unions, neighbors, and some political parties has been more powerful and has forced the landlords to back down, who rushed to retract their abuses. It was already too late, yes, but perhaps it is not for the other Maricarmens who suffer in silence. It is surprising that no one from the property chambers has censured Urbagestión's move.

For many years, the narrative of Western cities mirrored that of global cities: mayors wanted technology and financial centers, large office towers, and to compete to be the headquarters for multinationals. In the middle of the 21st century, these agendas cannot be carried out without the guarantee that there is a public housing stock for all budgets. It is that simple: there will be no investment as long as cities are not places of stability and projects are validated with broad consensus. It will remain extremely important to design and plan, but without a social license, capital will flee to more stable environments. Because no one will install offices in a city if their own workers cannot live there.

Ayuso allowed herself to joke about the matter: "At what age can you stop paying the landlord?" she said, or something similar. Aside from being miserable, the mockery was very short-sighted, and it has backfired on her. Because now the citizenry is also looking at the right and asking itself, if they govern: how long can we continue to pretend that the housing market regulates itself with a simple balance between supply and demand? Welcome to the 21st century, where everything is much more complex than what Ms. Ayuso's latest tweet allows for. The death of Maricarmen has made people think, and that is much more subversive than it seems.