• Limits on renting. What is done outside of Spain?
  • Tension. The rent already eats 40% of the salary of families in Madrid, Catalonia and the Canary Islands

The Government continues to look for formulas to reduce prices and tension in the rental market. A few months ago, the Ministry of Transportation, Mobility and Urban Agenda (formerly known as the Ministry of Development) presented the 20,000 Plan, one of the stars of its agenda, which aims to introduce 20,000 new homes in the public park in exchange for more income affordable. To this end, the department led by José Luis Ábalos plans to transfer a portion of public land to private companies so that they can build and manage these houses with affordable income.

And this is where the plan is finding one of its main pitfalls. The Ábalos cabinet has spent months in talks with other ministries to make a kind of inventory and determine what part of their land and property could be incorporated, although there has been little progress.

Among all the susceptible assets, there is a typology that is especially juicy and attractive: the military barracks located in the big cities. Some of these centers have not been used for years and have a vast area of ​​land in more or less central locations, precisely those most affected by the increase in rents.

At the moment it is only one of the ideas on the table, "one of the lines of action" that have been raised, as confirmed by knowledgeable sources of the negotiations, "although no progress has been made in it." And no progress has been made, in part, by the reluctance of the Ministry of Defense to yield part of these locations.

The promoters and investors of the sector themselves point out that these lands would be an interesting option to introduce more offer in the market, but the last word is Defense. The department of Margarita Robles is responsible for the assets of these facilities and its objective is to obtain the highest possible yield from them, either in the form of a transfer for housing or looking for other alternatives not necessarily related to the Executive's housing policy.

Meanwhile, Ábalos continues trying to add soil and land to carry out his plan. A part of these soils would be transferred by the Public Business Entity of Soils (Sepes), but the Ministry holds conversations in parallel with other public administrations such as municipalities and communities, which also have assets that can be incorporated into the project.

There is hardly any progress at the moment, neither at this point nor in the rest of the plan. Promoters, funds and builders have shown their willingness to collaborate and look forward to the specifications of the project that the Ministry has yet to develop.

Half a century of assignment

So far, it is known that the plan involves transferring rights on public land to private builders and developers for a period, in principle, of 50 years . During that time, they would be responsible for the construction and rehabilitation of the properties for subsequent rental management; Once that half century passed, the houses would once again become the property of the State. In this way, the Government intends to contribute to reducing the tension that in the last years has reached the housing sector in Spain, especially in the area of ​​rent.

Prices have not escalated since the beginning of the recovery and, although there is no homogeneous indicator, the different specialized actors agree on this upward trend. According to the Fotocasa real estate portal, rental income closed 2019 with an increase of 5.1% , which allowed the fifth consecutive year of increases to be linked.

The situation is causing problems of accessibility to housing, especially among young people and especially in cities such as Madrid, Barcelona, ​​Valencia or Malaga, where prices are much higher.

To try to alleviate the situation, the Pedro Sánchez Executive has put several measures on the table. The most controversial is to limit the rental prices in the areas most stressed by the increases, one of the red lines that United We can establish to support the coalition government with the Socialists.

Although at first both parties seemed safe from the initiative, just two weeks after the formation of the Government, the Vice President and Minister of Economic Affairs, Nadia Calviño , showed her reluctance towards the measure and warned that other cities that have already launched have not succeeded.

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  • economy
  • José Luis Ábalos
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