A few days ago, the governor of the Bank of Spain, José Luis Escrivá, warned that housing is a true national emergency. He is not wrong. This problem, which is a growing concern for citizens, has become the main source of growth in social inequality. Whichever data you look at, the diagnosis is always the same: there is more demand than supply, expensive and practically inaccessible for a large part of the population. And of the supply that exists, some is in the hands of non-residents or are apartments used for tourist rentals. In total, there are about 900,000 across the country, according to data from the Bank of Spain.

Home sales soared 52.3% in March compared to the same month last year, reaching 10,345 transactions in Catalonia, according to provisional data from the National Statistics Institute (INE) published this Friday. This is the best figure for the third month of the year since 2007, the same year the historical series began and just before the real estate bubble burst. Across the country, home sales increased, although less so in Catalonia, by 40.6%, with 62,808 transactions, also the highest volume for a month of March since 2007. In the first quarter as a whole, Catalonia saw 29,782 transactions, 23% more than in the same quarter, and 183,140 homes, a 20.7% increase.

Housing is an issue that has gained prominence among citizens' concerns in recent years. Increasingly high prices due to a supply that doesn't keep up with demand and a shrinking and extremely expensive rental market shape the current landscape. And it has fueled discontent among an increasing number of citizens, especially younger ones. Governments, which for many years have left the functioning of the housing market in the hands of the free market, are now rushing to solve a problem that takes time: a housing stock isn't built overnight. The trend so far has led us to levels of public and/or subsidized housing that place us at the bottom of the European list.