Small home owners are considering removing 108,500 homes from the rental market (11.7% of those currently rented in Spain) due to the impact of the new housing law, according to a study prepared by the Tecnocasa Group and the Pompeu Fabra University (UPF) and presented this Wednesday. José García-Montalvo, professor at the UPF and coordinator of the report, has emphasized that a large part of this impact will affect, even if the new law is not finally applied, due to the psychological blow that the debate and the insecurity that lives the sector has in the owners.
The study, carried out among the customers of the 850 offices of the Tecnocasa network, points out that the income limit in tense areas (22%) and legal insecurity (66.3%) are the two most alleged causes by owners who wish to stop renting, while the impossibility of passing the CPI on income is the reason for 11.8% of owners.
According to the Tecnocasa study, the departure from the homes will occur when the rental contracts that are currently in force end: then, 7.7% of the owners plan to sell the home, while 4% will look for other options, such as lease it with different housing uses. Lázaro Cubero, Director of Analysis at Grupo Tecnocasa, recalls that in cities such as Madrid and Barcelona, ??with a large percentage of the floating population, there are rental options for students or for short periods, for example.
The most important reductions in housing supply would occur in Toledo (17%), Guadalajara (16.4%) and Santa Coloma de Gramenet (16%), while there would be less reductions in Fuenlabrada (6.8% ), Móstoles (7.9%) and Valencia (8.1%).
In the city of Barcelona, ??the offer would be reduced by 12.6% (24,090 fewer properties), and in Madrid, by 11.3% (43,113 fewer properties). By district, the most affected areas of the two capitals would be Barcelona’s Eixample, with a decrease in supply of more than 16.5%, and the center of Madrid, with a reduction of 14.6% .
Montalvo pointed out that the sale of these homes can also have an additional impact and accelerate gentrification, as has happened in San Francisco. “Rental incomes of 2,500 euros/month, like those in those areas, can be paid by some local professionals, but the purchase of these homes, with the current mortgage conditions, is only accessible to international managers”.
Cubero emphasized that the reasons why owners decide to leave the rental market vary greatly in the two capitals. While in Madrid it is mainly due to legal insecurity (70.9%), in Barcelona it is due to the income limit in tense areas (63%) which allows the new law to be imposed, and which recovers a measure that was already in force in Catalonia.
The Tecnocasa study has only been done with private owners, as the group does not work with large landlords. The profile of the owners who rent with Tecnocasa is a person over 55 years old (37.7%), with university studies (40.4%), with an indefinite employment contract (55.1%) and of Spanish nationality (92.5%). They have between one and three rented homes, he points out. “In many cases they are professionals who changed homes when they had children and instead of selling the first one, they rented it out and paid the mortgage with the income. On the other hand, pensioners (27% of our owners) usually have the flat paid for and use the income to supplement the pension.
