Maria Alonso |
Madrid (EFE).- Access to housing, especially complicated for young people, due to the high rental price and the difficulties in obtaining a mortgage loan, is one of the main problems reflected in the surveys and one of the leading issues in the electoral campaign.
While the administrations and parties debate how to solve it, many Spaniards are looking for a way to access decent housing.
Return to parents’ house to save
Manuel, 31, works at a technology company in Barcelona. He paid 800 euros a month for a three-bedroom apartment in Sardañola del Vallés, a town about 18 kilometers from the Catalan capital, but as he explained to EFE, the tenants told him that when his rental contract ended they would raise the price.
“I had to leave the apartment, so I searched in the city of Barcelona, but they were all very expensive. In the surrounding towns, it was also impossible for me to find anything, because there were hardly any and those that were available had exorbitant prices, ”she says.
He says that, in the city of Barcelona, he could only find low-rises without a window or similar homes for less than a thousand euros.
In the surrounding towns, he saw some with two or three rooms, but they were around 1,000 or 1,200 euros, so it would be unfeasible for him to save.
In fact, according to the Generalitat Housing Secretariat, the average rental price stood at 1,077 euros in Barcelona in the last quarter of 2022.
“Paying more than half a salary in rent is an abuse, so, since I could telework, I moved to my parents’ house to save and, in a few years, be able to provide an income to buy a house. It is the only way, ”she concludes.
Tourist homes or long-term rentals
Juan, a 45-year-old from Jaén, rented a house in 2005 in one of the most touristy neighborhoods in Granada, the Albaicín. The problems began about five years ago, when the owners told him that they would not renew the contract because they wanted to rent the property as a tourist home.
“They told me to leave the house but, having been here for so many years, the law contemplated that they had to renew my contract. I didn’t leave and they began to pressure me, they sent me a burofax, later they denounced me, they called me a squatter… But it wasn’t because obviously I paid the rent and the bills”, he told EFE.
He says that there are more and more reforms to make tourist homes. “There are people who rent them to tourists even without a license, because there is a lot of demand,” says Juan, who left the house in March after reaching an agreement with the owners and moved to a more affordable neighborhood.
On hunger strike to ask for decent housing
Luisa Heredia from Malaga receives a minimum vital income of 870 euros for herself and her four children. Three are minors and one of them, eight years old, has spina bifida, a disease that affects the spine and can cause physical and intellectual disabilities.
For several years, she has occupied a house in a neighborhood in Malaga and on March 7 they tried to evict her. Although they managed to paralyze him that day, in April he began a ten-day hunger strike to demand decent housing for his family.
Now she has managed to postpone the eviction of the house until May 26, but according to the statement to EFE by the representative of the Platform for People Affected by Mortgages (PAH), Mónica Pérez, the response that Luisa has had from the institutions is, so far, “practically nil”.
Ground floor without certificate of occupancy
The architect David Cárdenas and his wife bought in 2017 a place where there was a bike shop in the central Madrid neighborhood of Chamberí.
According to what he told EFE, the regulations at that time required a project to be presented to the town hall with the plan of the future home and, months later, a technician from the consistory would visit the premises to make sure that it met the requirements. If so, he granted her the certificate of habitability.
However, he clarifies that a responsible declaration is currently signed, in which the author of the project or the architect certifies that the habitability conditions are met, but no one from the town hall makes sure of it.
“It doesn’t seem like a coincidence to me that when we arrived in the neighborhood in 2017 there were about five homes with these characteristics and now they have tripled,” highlights the architect, who concludes that he does not believe they are “excellent” living spaces and that a good number of those premises have been converted into tourist homes.
Premium digital nomads
Another factor that makes the price of housing in Spain more expensive is that the rise of teleworking has allowed foreigners from all over the world to choose our country as the place from which to work remotely.
In Alicante, a city with a mild climate and well connected by plane, there are a good number of digital nomads who live in a “premium coliving”, that is, a residential model based on sharing certain spaces that specializes in a luxury profile. .
Under the “Suiters” brand, this 49-room space is located in front of the food market and has already posted the full sign.
As detailed to EFE by the director of Product and Experience of “Suiters”, Carlos Pérez Fur, the average user is 36 years old, is of European origin -although there are some Americans- and they are mostly developers or computer programmers, who pay a monthly fee. between 850 and 900 per month for a 20 square meter room, with kitchen and bathroom included.