There is a generation of young people, born around the turn of the century, who have practically only lived from crisis to crisis, thrown by destiny into a shock as violent as a waterfall. That generation is beginning to raise its voice. The canary in the mine was the boos of American university students at the triumphalist speeches about AI. The rage of French students has turned the country upside down; In Italy there are thousands of young people mobilized; Belgium is preparing a strike over cuts in health and education. The wave of youth protest hits for the most diverse causes: in the South of the Pyrenees the reason is what the writer Manuel Rivas has baptized as “cadastral violence.” A deep real estate crisis spurred by the eviction of an octogenarian, the Maricarmen case, has ended up causing a call for a general strike and an early election. The solution takes a long time, but the recipes have made it into the campaign and are easy to summarize. The left proposes regulation in the face of a blatant market failure, and eight out of 10 Spaniards want the State to intervene. The right proposes building more: laissez faire. Regulating is not going to fix everything overnight, but building enough to unclog the problem is, quite simply, impossible in the short term.
Housing is one of the great economic injuries of the last quarter of a century. In Spain it has generated two major crises: the Great Recession forced banks to be rescued and a very painful internal devaluation to be applied, and the current housing crisis has caused a political shock. The key word in that story, financialization, is pitch black. Biblical translation: an asset that was halfway between the free market and constitutional rights entered a speculative spiral and today is one of the great sources of inequality in the developed world in general and Spain in particular.
There are other causes, of course. The population has increased by six million people in 20 years. The average family size has decreased; more homes are needed. And there is a shortage where work and population are concentrated: in cities and tourist areas more needs to be built, although without adequate regulations this does not guarantee that housing reaches those who need it. Before 2008, half of households arrived at the property at the age of 27; now it is 35. Two-thirds of young households were homeowners 20 years ago; Now that figure has dropped to a third, according to the brilliant Nobody Chooses When It's Born, by economist Daniel Fuentes. There is not enough subsidized housing stock; There is hardly any affordable rent. And that causes young people to leave home at the age of 30, compared to 21 for the European average.
The old material conditions of life: that is the seedbed in which the protest has sprouted.
"The housing crisis is not made cheaper by distributing shortages. Spain needs to build. A lot," according to chef José Andrés. This simple recipe has enthused the apostles of the free market: the laws of supply and demand of the neoclassical synthesis are presented as the wild balm capable of ending this crisis; with almost all of them. But perhaps it is not so simple: Spain built a lot between 2004 and 2008, more than half a million homes with the construction boom, land liberalization, easy credit and expectations of price revaluation. When that bubble burst it left thousands of zombie housing estates, 650,000 unsold apartments and many families, companies and banks trapped. The memory of that puncture continues to condition the decisions of economic agents. The scars of that crisis, furthermore, make the option of building as if there were no tomorrow illusory.
Lack of labor; Half of the bricklayers and construction workers are migrants (PP and Vox advocate facilitating all policies that allow more construction, but demand a tough hand on migration). Promoters are reluctant to take risks. Banking too: financing does not always arrive for certain projects. There is a swarm of powers scattered between articles of the Constitution, European regulations and countless laws and decrees that give powers to four levels of the Administration. And many mayors are reluctant to remove land so as not to inflate bubbles, and because urban plans take 20 years to be approved.
"We have to build, but that is not enough and it is not so easy or fast; there is a lack of workers, the sector was put on hold for a decade and a half and the banks have skimped on financing for the public stock," summarize sources from the Ministry of Housing. "A new land law would be needed but majorities are not easy. Many communities have torpedoed the solutions, playing in favor of funds and even illegal tourist apartments. The market has gotten out of hand," admit the same sources.
Alberto Núñez Feijóo, leader of the PP, proposes building one million homes. In Galicia it already arrived at the Xunta with the promise of building tens of thousands of VPOs: it shipped about 5,000 in its first years, inherited from previous Executives, and then there was a total paralysis, from which Galicia has recently emerged with the delivery of 24 VPOs in Santiago. Nor does Sánchez's Government have a spectacular record: the original sin of the crisis, the lack of public parks, is attributable to right-wing and left-wing governments. Spain has intervened a lot in the real estate market, but for decades it directed public resources to facilitate ownership and opened the door for VPOs, after a few years, to join the free market. The VPO park is barely 3% of the total, three times less than the European average; social rent does not reach 2%, compared to 15% in the Netherlands, Austria and Denmark.
The Maricarmen case has put an end to inaction: the most suspicious thing about solutions is that you find them when you look for them, Ferlosio used to say. Javier Gil, from the CSIC, maintains that the epicenter of the problem is that housing has become “a speculative asset.” And he argues that we must build, but above all he demands “housing at affordable prices, for purchase and rental, and a regulation that does not leave everything in the hands of the market, because we have already seen the consequences of laissez faire.” Rajoy's Government rolled out the red carpet for the funds after the Great Crisis, "and it is time to design a comprehensive intervention to expel these funds and go against tourist flats and empty homes." "With indefinite rental contracts. With limits on purchases by non-residents, as Canada does. With taxes to discourage the concentration of real estate ownership, as happens in Europe," says Gil.
In the midst of a crisis, what once seemed impossible becomes inevitable: on the table there are two decrees with proposals that previously seemed unthinkable. Carme Trilla, housing expert, is committed to concerted housing as an emergency solution, following in the footsteps of health and education. "Building is going to be slow, because the sector has been hibernating for 20 years, there is a lack of workers and there are financing gaps. And regulating is going to be complicated because this is a country that is impossible for political pacts," he says. “The classical theory of supply and demand is all very well: until it runs into reality,” he adds; “The system has created incredible holes and people are demanding change; the market's simplistic recipes for worship don't work.”
Unlike Gil and Trilla, Jorge Galindo, from EsadeEcPol, places emphasis on construction: “It is the most important thing, a necessary condition for everything else in the face of the entry of migrants and the difficulties of emancipation of young people.” “It's the fundamental thing,” he repeats. Galindo published a few months ago Three million homes: the figure in the title is debatable; the idea not so much if it is mixed with other policies. He himself clarifies: "In addition to building, we must regulate to have more long-term rentals, with French-style public insurance, and get the public sector to buy buildings to rent in an emergency situation." Even where it is essential, building is not enough: regulations should establish incentives to see where to do it, at what prices, under what regime, for what use. "Non-residential uses must be discouraged, especially by foreigners. And at the same time, enrich the ecosystem with entities specialized in affordable rentals. Vienna was not built in a day," he emphasizes.
