The big cities of the metropolitan area of Barcelona They deal with housing prices as much or more than the Catalan capital. In fact, the purchasing power of the residents of the first crown cannot keep up with the skyrocketing rental and purchase costs. Thus, the effort to access a home –the ratio between incomes and prices in each municipality– goes little by little suffocating local economies of populations like BadalonaSant Cugat del Vallès or L’Hospitalet de Llobregat.
A study of the Chamber of Commerce of Barcelona, recently presented and financed by the Generalitat, is the umpteenth evidence that the so-called ‘oil stain’ of real estate inflation has largely settled in the Barcelona metropolis. According to the business entity, the overexertion carried out in 2023 places Catalonia in “historic highs” and today it can cost more for a typical Badalonese to find a roof than for a resident of Barcelona.
As already explained THE NEWSPAPER A year ago, rent increases in the most populated metropolitan cities left the average family income short. The causes are multiple. Among them, of course, the first thing that stands out is that, while rents in the metropolis of Barcelona register record numbers quarter after quarter, salaries are stagnant or, at the very least, not growing at a sufficient rate to offset increases in housing.
This is how he explains it Ferran Esquiuseconomist Gabinet d’Estudis Econòmics of the Chamber of Commerce of Barcelona, who also highlights that in cities near the Catalan capital there is a ‘metropolitan area effect’ in terms of population concentration and economic activity, which now translates into an increase in rental demand “in the face of a limited offer“.
For its part, Fernando Anton Alonsoresearcher in the area of social and urban cohesion of the Metropoli Institute, also emphasizes that in the first metropolitan ring there are cities with poverty levels higher than those of Barcelona city. “If prices go up, it may end up hurting you more if your starting income is lower,” she adds.
‘Metropolization’
To the process of erasure of municipal borders in regards to housing market in particular, and price of life in general, the doctor in geography and professor at University of Barcelona (UB) Miguel Rubiales they call you ‘metropolization’: “In Barcelona and the surrounding cities the urban dynamics that combine prices and everyday mobility they are the same. The ‘functional city’ has overcome the barrier of the municipal area and, in practice, works in metropolitan dynamics,” says Rubiales, who has carried out various research on issues of urban inequalities and housing policy.
Converges with that idea Anton Alonso, who explains that in the studies carried out by the Metropoli Institute have also observed this phenomenon: “We asked people if they thought they could access a home that satisfied them in their neighborhood or municipality. In 2017, problems were only highlighted in Barcelona and now in almost the entire metropolitan area.”
“It is evident that Badalona is greatly influenced by proximity to Barcelona, which makes it very attractive to come to live here. However, the number of rental contracts has been reducedwe believe that as a result of the legal uncertainty regarding illegal occupations and the latest housing laws that have been approved,” says the Deputy Mayor of Territory and Sustainability of the City Council of Badalona, Daniel Grace (PP).
At the opposite end is Rafa Gomez (PSC), Councilor for Housing L’Hospitaletwho thinks that the new Spanish housing law “can help reduce rental prices and make housing more accessible for everyone”, for example, thanks to caps in stressed markets, a characteristic shared throughout the Barcelona metropolis.
Despite the socioeconomic differences between municipalities, Gómez shows greater complicity in his analysis with the Francesc Duch (ERC), housing councilor of Sant Cugat del Vallèsmunicipality with the most expensive average rent of the entire Barcelona area according to Incasòl and city in which most effort has to make a neighbor to access a home.
“The real estate market sets prices based on the maximum possible performance of homes, not understood as a right but as a speculative productand where there is money, it squeezes even harder,” says Duch.
The profitability of housing
“A lot of population has ceased to have access to housing as its horizon through an abusive mortgage. Housing is a very juicy investment product that can produce a lot of income because it is also a essential goodsa very rigid patrimony and an asset that does not depreciate“explains the researcher in housing issues at the UB Miguel Rubialeswho highlights that, in Spain, “there is a historical housing policy deficit“.
Fernando Antón Alonso also highlights the role of homes as an investment object due to their “high profitability“and remembers how, after the economic crisis of 2008 derived from the real estate ‘boom’, access to property has become difficult, so the demand has shifted towards the rental marketwhile in the international capital has grown. Both researchers agree in pointing to the proliferation of tourist rentals and seasonal as one more reason for pressure on the already scarce rental housing market.
For his part, Esquius emphasizes that moving towards a model with more rent than purchase “does not have to be bad”, provided, of course, that “be affordable and decent”. Town councils like that of L’Hospitalet and Sant Cugat and experts agree in pointing out the need to expand a public housing stock on a rental basis and with affordable pricesgiven that the metropolis of Barcelona, as is also the case in the entire Spanish territory, public housing is barely around 2% of the total, far from the European average (more than 9%). However, Antón Alonso recognizes that, due to the economic and space difficulties involved in the production of social housing, its increase “will take years.”
Power and not being able to inherit
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In this scenario, it is worth looking at who will or will not the ability to inherit a home in the future: “About a 42% of the population in Spain has property without mortgage burden and when he dies he will pass inheritance to their children, a group, above all, of Spanish nationality. The thing is to see if the foreign population, with these rentals, will be able to one day access the property. If not, it will still be growing inequality“, says the economist of the Chamber, Ferran Esquius.
The investigator Miguel Rubiales, who claims that “ intervene ambitiously in the housing market“, adds that one of the “most important” elements to differentiate groups by socioeconomic condition is, precisely, “the possibility of some people or families of providing their children with a home” and that in a labor market “hostile to people youths” and difficulties in accessing housing generate a “very great inequality between landlords and tenants”. Faced with this panorama, politicians and experts demand a great consensus and long-term political pact to confront it.