Spaniards march across 40 cities to protest the growing housing crisis

Protesters returned to the streets across Spain on Saturday in anger over high housing costs with no relief in sight.

Thousands marched in the capital, Madrid, along with Barcelona and over 30 other cities in a demonstration organised by housing activists and backed by Spain’s main labour unions.

The housing crisis has hit particularly hard in Spain, where there is a strong tradition of home ownership and scant public housing for rent. Rents have been driven up by increased demand. Buying a home has become unaffordable for many, with market pressures and speculation driving up prices, especially in big cities and coastal areas.

A girl holds a banner reading ‘housing killing’ as people gather during a demonstration to protest high housing costs in Barcelona. AP

A generation of young people say they have to stay with their parents or spend big just to share an apartment, with little chance of saving enough to one day purchase a home. High housing costs mean even those with traditionally well-paying jobs are struggling to make ends meet.

“I’m living with four people and still, I allocate 30 or 40% of my salary to rent,” said Mari Sánchez, a 26-year-old lawyer in Madrid. “That doesn’t allow me to save. That doesn’t allow me to do anything. It doesn’t even allow me to buy a car. That’s my current situation, and the one many young people are living through.”

People gather during a demonstration to protest high housing costs in Barcelona. AP

The average rent in Spain has almost doubled in the last 10 years. The price per square meter rose from 7.2 euros ($7.9) in 2014 to 13 euros last year, according to real estate website Idealista. The increase is bigger in Madrid and Barcelona.

Incomes have failed to keep up, especially for younger people in a country with chronically high unemployment.

Spain does not have the public housing that other European nations have invested in to cushion struggling renters from a market that is pricing them out.

Demonstrators shout slogans during a protest to demand lower housing rental prices in Madrid. Reuters

Spain is near the bottom end of Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development countries with public housing for rent making up under 2% of all available housing. The OECD average is 7%. In France it is is 14%, Britain 16% and the Netherlands 34%.

Angry renters point to instances of international hedge funds buying up properties, often with the aim of renting them to foreign tourists. The question has become so politically charged that Barcelona’s city government pledged last year to phase out all its 10,000 permits for short-term rentals, many of them advertised on platforms like Airbnb, by 2028.

‘Neither houses without people, nor people without houses’ reads a protest banner in a march against housing prices in Palma. Reuters

Marchers in Madrid on Saturday chanted “Get Airbnb out of our neighbourhoods” and held up signs against short-term rentals.

In Barcelona, someone carried a sign reading “I am not leaving, vampire,” apparently in a message to would-be real estate speculator seeking to drive him out of his home.

The central government’s biggest initiative for curbing the cost of housing is a rent cap mechanism it has offered to regional authorities, based on a price index established by the housing ministry. But such measures have not proven enough to stop protests over the past two years. Experts say the situation likely won’t improve anytime soon.

“This is not the first, nor will it be the last, (housing protest) given the severity of the housing crisis,” Ignasi Martí, professor with the Esade business school and head of its Dignified Housing Observatory, said in an email.

“We saw this with the financial crisis (of 2008-2012) when (a protest movement) lasted until there was a certain economic recovery and a reduction in the social tension,” Marti added.

Associated Press