Housing in Spain: from a lack of solutions to the risk of social collapse

Every week, new data, surveys and reports confirm what we all already perceive in our daily lives: in Spain, accessing decent housing is becoming an impossible task. The housing crisis is no longer just an economic or real estate problem, but a social problem that threatens to fracture the foundations of our coexistence.

The latest report from GAD3 bluntly warns that this society is heading for collapse if urgent measures are not taken. The reason is simple: without housing, there is no possible life plan. If young people cannot become independent, if families spend more than 40 or 50% of their income on rent or mortgage payments, if the middle class is driven out of urban centres, what we have before us is a real social time bomb.

Buying is a luxury… and so is renting

Until a few years ago, those who could not buy at least had the option of renting. Today, as donpiso warns, that alternative hardly exists anymore. Rental prices are skyrocketing, supply is scarce and, in many cases, conditions that border on the abusive are being demanded. What used to be a reasonable option has now become a luxury available to few.

We are therefore at a dead end: you cannot buy because prices and interest rates block any reasonable mortgage, and you cannot rent because demand far exceeds supply. The consequence? Thousands of young people trapped in the family home, couples indefinitely delaying their life plans, and families living with their heads above water, sacrificing quality of life to be able to pay for a roof over their heads.

A structural problem, not a temporary one

The real tragedy is that this situation is not the result of a temporary crisis, but of a structural problem that we have been dragging along for decades: lack of urban planning, endless bureaucracy to promote new housing, lack of public housing and a regulatory framework that generates more insecurity than solutions.

Meanwhile, international investment funds find our cities to be a perfect market for speculation, buying entire buildings en bloc and then renting them out at unaffordable prices. Housing, which should be a basic right, has become a financial asset that works against those who need it most.

Slow and insufficient responses

The most worrying thing is that, in the face of a problem of this magnitude, the political and institutional response remains slow and insufficient. Public housing plans are announced that take years to implement, regulations are approved that often have the opposite effect to that intended, and the government continues to take a piecemeal approach instead of tackling the problem with a serious, ambitious and long-term plan.

Meanwhile, the market remains under pressure, prices continue to rise and inequalities are worsening. The result is a model in which a few gain a lot and the majority lose their quality of life.

A risk of social fracture

If action is not taken now, it is not only the future of the property market that is at stake, but the future of our society. Because a society in which the majority cannot access stable and decent housing is a society doomed to frustration, disillusionment and, ultimately, social fracture.

It is time to stop looking the other way and accept that the housing problem is one of the great challenges facing our country. Failure to do so will lead, as experts warn, to a veritable social collapse.