The housing situation is a major problem. Citizens have known this for some time, and for months now, the Spanish and Catalan governments have also been well aware of it and are launching initiatives to try to resolve it, despite knowing that any step in this direction takes time. An issue that the administrations neglected for many years is unlikely to be resolved quickly.

The word bubble Applied to housing, this creates fear. It reminds us of what we experienced seventeen years ago. Back then, the issue was financial, and the bubble of over-indebtedness burst, resulting in a demand that, in many cases, wasn't sufficiently solvent. Today, we can use the expression because we're not in that situation. As some experts claim, the current bubble It's about prices, meaning that the price per square meter is completely disconnected from income, wages, and economic growth. Its driving forces are demographic pressure, speculative investment, and the fall in credit prices.

The real estate market is gaining strength with the recovery of almost all of its sub-sectors, especially residential, offices and logistics. There are some elements that show this, such as the increase in leased office space and logistics warehouses, but also the increase in residential sales. An increase that affects both new and second-hand apartments and, moreover, with the return of buyers and foreign investors.

Housing prices are already growing at rates more typical of a world without pandemic. According to data published Wednesday by the Spanish National Statistics Institute (INE), buying a home in Catalonia in June was 3.2% more expensive than a year ago and 2.5% more than three months earlier. All this coinciding with a period that several professional sectors involved in the real estate market have been celebrated as the best in sales in fourteen years.

The rental price has stood at 13.4 euros per square meter per month during the first quarter of the year in Catalonia, 8.2% less than the same period of 2020, according to the quarterly report of the real estate market of real estate agents (API). In comparison with the previous three months, the fall was 2.5% due to the increase in supply, above all due to the transfer to the residential market of flats that were rented for tourism or for students, according to Luis Fabra, author of the report.

The year of the pandemic ended the seven-year continued growth in the housing market. House sales in Catalonia in 2013 turned the page on the financial crisis and started a streak of growth that would become double-digit two years later. But after the first signs of slowdown, the first fall in the number of sales was registered in 2019. Then, in 2020 the figure plummeted by 19.7%