First, I think okupas are a very small problem, mainly used for propaganda.
But how are real state companies feeding the problem? The problem is that there's no houses available, because politicians create artificial scarcity. In any local government, the stronger department is "Urbanism", decides if you get rich by allowing you to develop on your property, or you stay poor because you don't get the permits.
Come on, this is very public knowledge in Spain, they barely try to hide. Everybody knows how it works, and how close the biggest (and even not so big) developers are to the politicians. Then they politicians blame Idealista or AirBnb like they don't have any power to allow the country to duplicate the available housing starting today.
There is also the problem with the insecurity for the landlord in Spain: right now, is you rent to a family with kids, and the family doesn't pay, you can't do nothing! How is it a mistery that landlords are retiring their properties from the rent market to sell them? That's causing a massive shortage, that causes prices do go up.
It partially boils down to Spain having very little new construction. In a little eastern european country with 10 million people like Hungary there are roughly just as many new developments on the market as in a big country like Spain, with 40M population.
This problem is now so big local governments are now building new houses.
The rental issues are interesting because for example in Germany, the rental protections are very similar, maybe even more protecting than Spain. (Interestingly the prices are also lower in Germany, in Madrid prices start from 650+utilities, in Munich, 500+utilities)
Yes, seriously, blaming a real-estate listing website for listing real-estate is absolutely insane. We all need to build more housing, that's it. That's the solution.
I think you're confusing things slightly – I don't think idealista owns any property. They are however owned by a private equity group that invests among other things directly in real estate, which is tbf extremely common in PE.
> There is also the problem with the insecurity for the landlord in Spain: right now, is you rent to a family with kids, and the family doesn't pay, you can't do nothing! How is it a mistery that landlords are retiring their properties from the rent market to sell them? That's causing a massive shortage, that causes prices do go up.
There's an easy way to fix that: create a tax for unoccupied housing. If real estate sits unused for extensive durations instead of having tenants in them (i.e. having a rent low enough someone can afford it) it will burn a hole in your pocket. If you want to sell instead of letting someone rent, you will be incentivized to sell it ASAP even if you have to lower your price or make a loss.
Preferring to sell rather than renting out doesn't create a shortage. Preferring to keep housing unoccupied (in order to sell it) rather than renting it out or selling it at a price someone can afford does. If the market can't connect buyers/renters and sellers/landlords because the former can't afford the prices set by the latter and there's no economic pressure on the latter to lower their prices, you can just create that pressure.
Of course this would disincentivize private housing construction for people who don't also plan to live in that housing themselves but there's no reason there can't be a publicly funded organization for housing development able to take losses on sales/rent because it is backed by public money. This isn't uncharted territory either.
There's no reason housing has to function as an unregulated commodity. There's especially no reason to believe we can approximate that without further feeding into the housing crisis. There's a reason we have the term "rent-seeking" and why it has negative connotations: landlords only exist because most people can't afford or aren't eligible for the kind of loan that would allow them to build or buy a house. Unlike loan payments which end once you've paid off the loan (plus interest), rent goes on forever and only ever goes up. The entire point of being a landlord is that the rent accumulates to a sum greater than what you paid for the property (plus interest if you had to get a loan). Landlords literally don't add value. They're more like scalpers.
>landlords only exist because most people can't afford or aren't eligible for the kind of loan that would allow them to build or buy a house
I rent. Not because I can't afford to buy, but because I'm not convinced that I will stay where I am forever. Maybe in a few years I move to Tarifa to work remotely, maybe I move to China. Today I live in a flat, I don't know it I want to live in this flat forever or buy a house. Today I have good health, maybe tomorrow I don't so I need to change my housing requirements.
I need landlords to invest their money in houses I can rent. The same I need people buying planes so I don't have to buy one to fly. What is adding value for you? To me a landlord that made the investment so I can rent has value enough that I pay for it. If you don't like it, it's fine, but leave the rest of us live and rent in peace.
If being a landlord was so profitable and risk free, we would be drowning in properties for rent. The fact that it doesn't happen, but we have a massive house shortage speaks by itself.
> I need landlords to invest their money in houses I can rent.
No, you need affordable housing. There's no reason that has to double as a way for someone to make a considerable ROI. Having to rent means that even if you stay in one place long enough to pay for the cost of building/buying the house twice over, you still get to pay an ever increasing rent every month just for the service of not kicking you out of your home.
> If you don't like it, it's fine, but leave the rest of us live and rent in peace.
But that's the problem, isn't it? Everyone needs housing. It's not something you can simply opt out of. You can try being homeless but that precludes you from most ways to make an income. If you're wealthy enough, you can buy a house so you never have to rent again but again that's not a choice most people get to make even if they could afford it (because it hinges on their ability to get a loan, which is up to the bank).
I'm not saying you should have to pay a million bucks to have a place to live. Nothing I said contradicts the idea that you may want to live in different places over time. I'm saying commodity housing (i.e. having housing subject to a housing market) necessarily leads to a housing shortage and there are better options than trusting the benevolence of every single landlord not to charge as much rent as they can get away with.
> If being a landlord was so profitable and risk free, we would be drowning in properties for rent.
This (drowning in properties for rent) doesn't logically follow from that (being a landlord is very profitable) and that isn't what I said. There are other factors involved like how profitable being a landlord is relative to other things you can do (like selling) and how high the initial investment required to run a profitable landlord operation (with multiple properties) is.
> The fact that it doesn't happen, but we have a massive house shortage speaks by itself.
If it's a housing shortage, that's a supply problem. But according to other comments from people claiming to know the situation in Spain, there is no lack of housing supply (i.e. there are plenty of houses for sale and many empty houses for rent) so it seems to be a problem of pricing.
It's more profitable to sell (or rent out) a highly priced property even if it means you'll sit on it for a longer time, as long as you can afford the initial investment and maintenance. In fact, overpricing a property can be beneficial if you own other properties in the same area because it can raise the average and thus justify increasing the prices for other properties in the area. Not to mention that due to population growth over time demand goes up and new development usually happens in the outskirts, meaning supply in the area won't increase.
You can be okay with the status quo. That doesn't mean there aren't good arguments why the status quo is bad in certain ways. And changing the status quo doesn't mean removing one thing and being done with it. As much as some may feel it when rent is due, I don't think the solution is to kill all landlords (or more figuratively: abolish the profit model of being a landlord). De-commodification doesn't mean simply banning the sale of something. It's about replacing one model with another and there can be intermediate steps (e.g. the Red Vienna model of public housing).
If something is profitable, someone would do it in a free market. Even if selling houses is more profitable than renting, according to you renting is still more profitable than, for example, agriculture. How come there is not a flood of land owners selling their low profit land in Badajoz to buy houses in Madrid and Barcelona and double their income? How there are not hundreds of companies buying to rent, a safe and very profitable business, but there are hundreds of companies going bankrupt every year. For example, why start a car workshop when I could just buy three or four houses, rent them and live without working?
I'll tell you why: because renting is not a risk free and safe business, but a tight one. You can have renters that doesn't pay for a couple of years. Your tenants can cause damages to your property. Your property lose value if you don't invest in it. Lots of things can go south that wipe your ROI, and you can't do nothing to fix it. Sure, if you get a long term tenant that pays every 1st day of the month and takes good care of the house, it's a wonderful business, but that is not the norm.
> Everyone needs housing. It's not something you can simply opt out of.
Same thing I need food or clothing. And I have plenty of both, cheaply, on a wide variety and quality, because politicians don't meddle with them causing artificial shortages.
> there are better options than trusting the benevolence of every single landlord not to charge as much rent as they can get away with.
That's a free market. Every single one of us charges as much as we can get away with it. And pay as less as we can get away with it. If I don't have a higher wage is just because I'm selling my work to the best paying company. In turn, they are paying my salary because they couldn't find anyone that charges less than me for the same work.
> If it's a housing shortage, that's a supply problem. But according to other comments from people claiming to know the situation in Spain, there is no lack of housing supply (i.e. there are plenty of houses for sale and many empty houses for rent) so it seems to be a problem of pricing.
That makes no economical sense. There are cities (Madrid or Barcelona, surely others) where you can put a house for rent at any price, and it will get rented in hours. That's a supply problem! A problem of pricing would be hundreds of properties for rent at such prices that nobody rent them for months or years. There is a lack or supply _for rent_, and I don't care what other "informed" comments say unless they come with data.
> It's more profitable to sell (or rent out) a highly priced property even if it means you'll sit on it for a longer time, as long as you can afford the initial investment and maintenance
What? No, it's not. Each year without renting a house that you bought for, say, 300,000€ to rent for 1,000€/month is a loss of 12,000€ (4%). If you put that same 300,000€ in stocks or some kind of safe investment like public or private bonds, you would get at least 2% interest/dividend _and your invested money_ back. Instead you have inmovilized money that is producing zero (pre tax, depretiation and amortization). You should familiarize with this concept: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_cost
You basically are saying that I can buy stocks without dividend, because I'm just going to sell it at a higher prize in the future _guaranteed_. That might happen or not.
Companies and individuals who buy property to rent have direct negative effect on home prices. It's basic supply and demand, but a as soon a as you start talking to a landlord logic is out and mental gymnastics are in.
But how are real state companies feeding the problem? The problem is that there's no houses available, because politicians create artificial scarcity. In any local government, the stronger department is "Urbanism", decides if you get rich by allowing you to develop on your property, or you stay poor because you don't get the permits.
Come on, this is very public knowledge in Spain, they barely try to hide. Everybody knows how it works, and how close the biggest (and even not so big) developers are to the politicians. Then they politicians blame Idealista or AirBnb like they don't have any power to allow the country to duplicate the available housing starting today.
There is also the problem with the insecurity for the landlord in Spain: right now, is you rent to a family with kids, and the family doesn't pay, you can't do nothing! How is it a mistery that landlords are retiring their properties from the rent market to sell them? That's causing a massive shortage, that causes prices do go up.