The growing weight of the housing market in Spain and Europe is shaking. A study by the Asufin consumer association had already detected last March a notable increase in those making the decision to take out a mortgage for investment purposes, which represented 56% of operations. On the other hand, people who took out mortgages to purchase their first home only accounted for 14%.
It is well known that the causes of rising housing prices and shortages are multiple. But the facts certify the difficulties for citizens across Europe as social policies have rolled back and facilitated the conversion of housing into an investment object rather than a social good and a human right.
The social decline in housing in the Union is notorious. The proportion of social housing in Europe, which in 2021 represented 8% of the total (14 million houses) has decreased significantly since the situation in 2010, when it represented 11% of the stock, according to a resolution of the European Parliament last September. The MEPs’ document points out that this reduction in social facilities has occurred “although the number of vulnerable people, including homeless people and migrants, has increased significantly.” A decrease that they also relate to “a slowdown in the construction of new social housing and the privatization of the existing housing stock, through which social housing is converted into rental housing at market price.”
The analysis by the European Parliament places speculators at the center of the causes of the housing crisis. Thus, it points out that “the gap between housing supply and demand has been aggravated by the important role played by speculators in increasing house prices and creating real estate bubbles, as well as by the lack of public investment in affordable and social housing in recent decades.”
Among their recommendations, MEPs highlight the need to include long-term conditions for beneficiaries of European cohesion funds for affordable housing and the exclusion of speculative investors “by establishing safeguards against short-term speculative acquisitions.”
The crisis, caused by a lower weight of social investment and the growing presence of speculative activities, is one of the main causes of citizen unrest in many European countries. In Holland, the unrest over the lack of housing (it is estimated that there are about 400,000 missing) and its subsequent increase in housing prices has become the main topic of debate ahead of the upcoming elections. There are well-founded fears that the housing crisis will favor an advance of the extreme right. Discontent is always based on objective realities and in the case of housing it is palpable that progressive governments forgot their commitments and their very reason for existing.
