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 housing crisis, and especially its rising prices, is caused by many factors, but one of them is a lack of supply. Economic laws explain that when there is high demand for a product and low supply, prices rise. Therefore, more housing would have to be built to lower apartment prices, which seems difficult, according to the building permit data from the College of Architects of Catalonia (COAC) published this Thursday. The number of permits is falling, indicating that new apartment construction will decline in the coming months.

The construction sector has not recovered its pre-pandemic levels. The Architects' Association of Catalonia confirms it in the report of the work visas presented this Thursday. The whole of the area approved in Catalonia continues to fall. The little more than two million square meters approved are 1.5% less than the first half of last year and 15% less than the first quarter of 2019, before the pandemic, when almost 2.4 million square meters were approved.