J.P. Marín-Arrese explains in the daily Expansión that “A little over a hundred years ago, a conservative parliament validated the Bugallal decree. It froze rents, extended their validity for life and established serious obstacles to evictions, in order to stop a tenants’ strike. Compared to that measure, the one today being forged under pressure from the purple wing of the government (Podemos) pales in comparison due to its lukewarmness. The…
The Spanish government has unblocked the approval of the 2022 Budget through an agreement between the two coalition parties, PSOE and Podemos, on a new Housing Law that would intervene in rental prices. Although the formulation of the text that will be sent to Parliament is not yet known, among its main points will be the obligation for large owners – companies with more than 10 homes – to reduce rental prices in those areas defined as stressed on the basis of the reference price index of the Ministry of Transport. For their part, small holders will have to maintain prices, although they will be eligible for income tax benefits of up to 90% of the reductions they decide to make. the enforcement of these measures will depend on the autonomous communities and municipalities.
Citizens in Germany’s capital, Berlin, voted at the weekend to approve an initiative that would require the expropriation of 240,000 homes from large owners, i.e. companies with more than 3,000 flats. The non-binding referendum on the “municipalisation of housing” resulted in 57 per cent in favour of the measure and 38 per cent against. In an attempt to give tenants back the security that their homes will remain in the low-cost segment, the Berlin city council, through the municipal companies Degewo, Howoge and Berlinovo, recently agreed to buy 14,750 flats from Vonovia and Deutsche Wohnwen.
According to the consultancy firm Knight Frank, which in its Global House Price Index has analysed the evolution of prices in 55 countries from 1Q20 to last spring 2021, in the USA, New Zealand, Canada, Australia, Luxembourg and Sweden housing has risen by more than +15%, above the average (+9.2%). Turkey leads the ranking with an increase of +29%. Spain is the market with the biggest fall in the global ranking, with a decrease of 0.9%. India is the other lagging country in the list, with a 0.5% decline.
China’s country’s largest real estate company, Evergrande, which is on the verge of bankruptcy with more than $300 billion in debt (about 2% of China’s GDP), has announced that it will not be able to pay interest next week. Weak home sales, especially in the last year, have put it in this cash-strapped position. Therefore, the situation is becoming increasingly tense. The group is described by Beijing as a “grey rhinoceros”, i.e., a large company with an alarming debt load representing a systemic financial risk.
Intermoney | Investment in real estate assets in Spain amounted to around €2.5 billion. This is an increase of 52% compared to the figure for the first quarter of this year, according to provisional data estimated by the consultancy firm CBRE. For the half year as a whole, the total is €4.167bn, a drop of 19% from last year, when one of the best Q1s in history was recorded, just…
The Spanish transactional market recorded 738 operations in the first four months of the year, 3.8% more than in the same period of the previous year, with an aggregate value of 40,706 million euros, up 190%, according to a report by TTR.he real estate sector was the most active of the year, with 151 transactions, followed by the technology sector, with 145.
Intermoney | The Government of Pedro Sánchez plans to invest €1,000 million euros from the European funds against the pandemic in the promotion of social rental housing. Specifically, they will use this amount to complete a portfolio of 20,000 social housing units, coordinated by the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and the Urban Agenda.
When it comes to improving the rental market, the parties in the government coalition, PSOE-Unidas Podemos, have very different conceptions. Both agree to include mechanisms to help control rental prices on an ad hoc basis and in the most stressed areas, but Pablo Iglesias’ party is demanding the establishment of limits on rental market prices, while the socialist part of the government has confirmed that they prefers to fiscally stimulate those owners who rent below the prices set by reference indexes.
The housing stock in Spain would be estimated at 4.1 billion euros in the hypothetical case that all the homes were now on the market, which is a figure over three times higher than national GDP (1.2 billion). This is according to a study by the real estate website Idealista, in which all the houses recorded in the property register are valued at current prices.