To understand where we are in terms of housing, we need to take a long-term view. It is often alleged that building a public housing stock is very slow, that a lot of money is needed to have land reserves, and that many years of continuous investment would be required to reach the target of 15% affordable housing in cities. However, in a country like Spain, historically very exposed to bricks and mortar, the state has intervened on many occasions to rescue the markets: from 2008 to 2014, public and European funds were invested to save the banks and savings banks after the bursting of the real estate bubble; in 2012, Sareb was created to manage "toxic assets"; all kinds of facilities were given to SOCIMIs (real estate investment trusts), and the Urban Leasing Act (LAU) was reformed, generalizing the signing of rental contracts to only three years. A large part of those decisions explains why finding a rental home now is a miracle.The story of Sareb can be explained from a macroeconomic perspective or from the point of view of cities: these are two opposing visions. I will explain it from this local perspective.Very close to my house, in a newly created neighborhood, there is a very large plot of land with weeds, delimited by some large stones, which has been empty for years. Before, it was fields, and since the approval of a partial plan in 2002, new streets have been made that give rise to plots intended for six-story blocks, but of low density, because the buildings are very far apart from each other. Only 10% of the development is destined for social housing, as in many planning schemes of that time.The burst of the real estate bubble in 2008 caused land prices to soar as they transitioned from fields to building plots, and some developers got their fingers burned. In anticipation that prices would not return to those values, Sareb was created to prevent the correction in land and apartment prices from leading to bank failures. Thus, the plot next to my house passed into the hands of the bad bank, and many of my neighbors do not know that urban planning proposes a block for 58 apartments there. Sareb has held it in its portfolio for years and no private developer has wanted to develop it, despite it being ready-to-build land. The market has not responded as expected.In an attempt to mobilize a package of land such as the one next to my house, Sareb held a tender called the Vienna Plan, which was supposed to allow for the construction of 3,770 affordable homes throughout Spain for developers who would collect the rents for 80 years. The tender, however, remained deserted: no operator saw itself capable of promoting affordable rental apartments in dozens of different municipalities, each pending its own licensing and permit procedures, with the uncertainty of construction costs rampant due to the pandemic, and later the wars in Ukraine and Iran.

Two residents of Sabadell have filed a lawsuit against Sareb —the so-called bad bank— after the entity is demanding more than three million euros from them for a mortgage they never took out, neither directly nor voluntarily. According to the lawsuit, which has already been accepted for processing, the affected parties—now deceased—never received the money they are now being asked to return. In fact, as the lawsuit explains, the loan was granted to a third party: the real estate developer Wilder Bay SL, which subsequently went into administration. From then on, the mortgage debt was subject to several financial transfers until it reached Sareb, which is now demanding repayment from the daughters of the deceased neighbors, aged 79 and 74.

The scarcity of final-use land (consolidated urban land) for building affordable housing is usually attributed to planning (to the technical complexity of urban planning), but Ignacio Ezquiaga, in a study for the Funcas Foundation, has another explanation, which seems convincing to me in light of what I know about Sareb.

The Spanish government takes a further step to strengthen the State Housing Company (Sepes) after the legislative change that allows it to "manage and build housing". This Tuesday, the Council of Ministers approved the incorporation of more than 40,000 Sareb apartments into this public company. Of the total apartments, 9,257 are located in Catalonia, or 27.8%, according to data from the Ministry of Housing. Additionally, 2,400 plots of land with a capacity of 55,000 apartments are to be incorporated, according to the Ministry's calculations. The Spanish government's objective is for all of them to become part of the state's public housing stock—Spain has been at the bottom of the European list for years—and be allocated to social rentals. This measure adds to the list of formulas, especially rentals, that currently affect citizens. "The goal is to make these apartments available to families for affordable rentals," stated the Minister of Housing, Isabel Rodríguez, at a press conference after the Council of Ministers. The impact will not be immediate.

How many floors are we talking about?

The Ministry of Housing has identified more than 40,000 properties, as well as 2,400 plots of land where 55,000 apartments could be built. These plots are now in the hands of Sareb, which will become part of the Sepes (Spanish Housing Authority). The number of apartments already built alone is greater than the real estate assets currently held by Sareb (approximately 37,500 homes, as verified by ARA). The government's announcement includes more homes, taking into account the properties that Sareb expects to receive in the next two years from non-payments by developers or construction companies during the real estate boom, which are still being disputed in court.

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The Sareb is one of Girona's main urban developers, with more than 250 homes and several building plots spread throughout the city. Of these, however, dozens are empty, unavailable for rent, locked and locked awaiting better market conditions. No one lives there, except for a few vulnerable families without a regular lease.

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