Barcelona is promoting a loan of up to 80,000 euros to help young people buy apartments

BarcelonaOnce again, housing dominated the Barcelona City Council plenary session. However, this time a concrete measure emerged from the debate. The municipal government has adopted a proposal from the ERC (Republican Left of Catalonia) to promote an interest-free loan to help young people who want to buy an apartment overcome one of the main barriers they face: the down payment. Specifically, the PSC (Socialist Party of Catalonia) executive has committed to working with the Generalitat (Catalan Government) to have the Catalan Finance Institute (Institut Català de Finances) increase the loan it offers to €80,000 for apartment purchases in the city of Barcelona. This essentially involves revising one of the flagship measures of Salvador Illa's administration to facilitate young people's access to housing: the so-called Emancipation Loans. While loans generally cover up to 20% of the property value – with a cap of €50,000 – the City Council is now requesting that this cap be raised to €80,000 in Barcelona. They justify this increase by pointing out that the average price of housing in the city is substantially higher than in the rest of the country. During her speech, the ERC leader in the City Council, Elisenda Alamany, lamented that in recent years thousands of Barcelona residents have had to move to other municipalities in Catalonia due to the difficulty of finding housing in the city. Therefore, she argued that this loan can help people who can afford a mortgage but lack sufficient savings to overcome the "great hurdle" faced by many who want to buy an apartment: the down payment.

Faced with doubts from parties like Junts – which has emphasized that in the first six months only 426 young people have taken advantage of ICF loans – the fourth deputy mayor for Housing, Jordi Valls, defended the suitability of the proposal, arguing that "what." He explained that although the City Council itself cannot generate any loans, it is willing to help with financing by covering the additional interest costs generated by increasing the aid from 50,000 to 80,000 euros.

However, other changes proposed by ERC to the aid program did not pass. These included extending it to people over 35 and introducing other anti-speculation measures that would have permanently designated homes purchased with this instrument as officially protected housing. Currently, if a home is to be sold after a certain period, the price will be limited to the purchase price plus any applicable interest. Inflation and the cost of certain renovations. From the fourth year onwards, it will be possible to rent with public authorization at a price lower than 80% of the reference rental price index.

Support for the modification of the LAU in Congress

Earlier, the plenary session had also voted in favor of a proposal from Barcelona en Comú requesting that the city council support the proposal from the Landlords' Union, which is scheduled for debate in Congress in February, to amend the Urban Leases Law (LAU). This initiative aims to clearly regulate room and seasonal rentals. The proposal passed with votes in favor from the PSC, Barcelona en Comú, and ERC, and votes against from the PP and Vox. Junts, whose votes hold the key to the future of this law in Congress, abstained. A Junts initiative calling on the Catalan Government to create a public fund to help young people buy homes by covering up to 25% of the purchase price did not pass. Nor did a proposal from the PP requesting a halt to the plan to eliminate all tourist apartments in the city by the end of 2028.