There are 3,837,328 empty homes throughout the State, according to the last census of 2021. They account for 14.41% of the national housing stock.
Empty dwellings are those that are not the habitual residence of anyone and are not used seasonally, periodically or sporadically. In order to analyze whether they represent a problem in the residential market and, what is more, whether they are enough to put an end to the lack of housing supply in some parts of the country, it will be necessary to observe how these properties are distributed over the territory.
The Housing Law gives municipalities the possibility of applying increases in the IBI on empty homes, with the aim of urging owners to put them on the rental market.
This measure, along with others, could contribute to increasing the supply of flats for rent. On its own, however, it could be insufficient: in cities where the price of flats is higher and there is more demand, the percentage of uninhabited houses decreases over the total number of dwellings.
This is deduced by a recent study by Atlas Real Estate Analytics with data from Fragua, which has found a negative correlation between the ratio of empty homes and the price of housing.
The majority of unoccupied homes in Spain (81.2%) are located in towns where the average family spends less than 30% of their income paying for housing, the report states.
In these localities there would not be a worrying inequality between supply and demand and, therefore, the residential market would not be stressed, if we take this condition defined by the Housing Law to declare areas of stressed residential market.
And so it is: the percentage of empty homes out of the total is higher in Galicia, Castilla-La Mancha and Castilla y León, as well as in the inland provinces of Andalusia, regions where the price of housing is lower than the state average and the population density is lower.
Even so, the total number of vacant homes found in localities with housing supply problems and eligible as stressed areas is estimated at at least 721,400 (18.8%), an area where approximately 61.1% of residents would live. the Spanish population, according to the same source.
When looking at the numbers in absolute value, we will see that the number of empty homes in these stressed areas would provide shelter for around 288,500 people, if we take into account that the average size per household in Spain is 2.5 people, according to the state data.
Owners considering selling unused homes, or renting them out, can help meet demand and prevent degradation over time. But there are many more people who want to buy than who want to sell, so other complementary measures to expand the national housing stock will also be necessary.
As is logical, Madrid and Barcelona are the cities with the most empty homes in absolute values: 97,178 and 75,476 respectively. Next on the list is Valencia, where the number drops to 36,454 vacant houses.
At the percentage level of the total number of homes built, Madrid is the autonomous community with the fewest uninhabited houses (6.4%), a percentage that has also been reduced by half since 2001 (12.4%).
In Catalonia, the percentage of empty houses out of the total in 2021 (10.7%) has also decreased, not as drastically as in Madrid, since the 2001 census data (13.7%).
The reason could be the willingness of the owners to make their real estate assets profitable in these areas, where rental prices are high and the sale and purchase market is lively.
In the autonomous communities with the most empty houses as a percentage of the total number of houses, the percentage has skyrocketed in the last twenty years. In Galicia, for example, it has almost doubled: from 17.5% in 2001 to 28.8% in 2021.
The same study has also found a negative correlation between the number of uninhabited houses and household income: the higher the family income, the fewer houses are uninhabited.
Analysts hypothesize, in this regard, that “purchasing power is higher” in these areas, “which stimulates the market and means that fewer homes remain unused.”
