Catalonia leads the need for affordable housing in Spain. There are 226,000 homes missing, and in the whole State, 761,000, a basic pillar to meet the needs of 1.7 million families (400,000 in Catalonia) at risk of residential exclusion because they spend more than 30% of their income to the payment of the rent, according to a study prepared by the real estate agency Culmia. However, the problem is not insurmountable if the political will is reflected in the budgets: 6.1 billion euros a year would solve the problem in a decade.
Francisco Pérez, CEO of the real estate company, recalled that in Spain there is a need for emergency housing (free for extreme situations, such as evictions or domestic violence), social housing (for people who can pay less than 300 euros in rent ) and affordable housing, with rents of 400 to 800 euros per month. “The private sector could make affordable rents, it would be enough for the Administration to make it easier for us”, he assured.
According to real estate data, the public investment needed to build the 1.7 million homes needed to solve the housing problem in Spain would be 61,000 million euros: 25,000 million to build 442,000 social homes and for situations of ‘housing emergency, 26,500 million to build 761,000 affordable rental homes and 7,700 million to grant grants that allow access to property, for 486,000 homes. “People who can buy with help free up rental homes for other families” – Pérez recalled -. In addition, these grants contribute to the sustainability of the pension system. “With housing paid for, a family can live with a pension of 1,000 euros; if you live in rent, no”.
In Catalonia, on the other hand, the necessary investment to build the 400,000 homes that are needed would be 7,400 million euros: 4,000 million to build 68,000 public rental homes, 1,010 million for 225,000 affordable rental homes and 2,380 million to give aids that facilitate access to the property.
The Culmia study predicts that affordable housing will be built by private companies, such as Culmia itself, which builds 3,000 homes in the Community of Madrid.
For this reason, the public investment, of 26,500 million euros, would make it possible to mobilize a total investment of 108,000 million in the construction of the 761,000 homes planned.
Pérez recalled that the public investment needed to solve the housing problem in Spain is not disproportionate. “In a ten-year plan, we are talking about 6,100 million annually, when the current budget of the ministry is already 4,000 million.” In the case of Catalonia, the real estate agency points out, the difference is even smaller: 740 million would be needed annually, and the Generalitat’s budget already dedicates 940 million to housing, but it is only able to build, with its own promotion, less than 1,000 homes per year.
Celso Gómez, Culmia’s director of analysis and strategy, lamented that the Generalitat’s housing expenditure has gone from 2.5% in the 2006 budget to 1.8% in 2022, precisely at a time when the difficulty of accessing housing has worsened. However, according to the study, the main problem facing Catalonia is the lack of land: there is only developed land to build 3,000 affordable rental homes in Barcelona and 30,000 in the metropolitan area (in peripheral areas) , with a land deficit for 186,000 homes.
To solve this, Gómez proposed to optimize taxation to increase the economic attractiveness of projects and changes in urban planning policy, and especially speed up the development of sectors to increase the number of homes that need to be built and promote plans of urban regeneration, with land use changes, as well as increasing the density of new sectors.