HMN 2025: How vacationer residences might be transformed into social housing in Spain

One in 4 folks in Spain considers housing to be one of many nation’s essential issues, in keeping with information from the most recent survey by the Center for Sociological Research (CIS). The proportion of the inhabitants involved about entry to housing below respectable situations has continued to extend lately.

This has gone hand in hand with the continuing rise in how a lot it prices to lease and purchase property and the way troublesome it’s to search out reasonably priced housing. There have been public protests in latest months to demand motion, and the federal government and political events have proposed completely different options to the disaster.

One of probably the most steadily cited causes of the issue is the rise in vacationer leases by means of platforms like Airbnb, which have operated lately with minimal regulation. In their newest study, published as open entry within the journal Cities, Francesc González Reverté from the Faculty of Economics and Business and researcher Pablo Díaz Luque from the New Perspectives on Tourism and Leisure (NOUTUR) analysis group, a part of the administration and governance analysis unit on the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC), navigate this tense relationship between tourism and housing to go one step additional and study doable options to the issue.

After analyzing what motivates individuals who lease out vacationer residences, they’ve concluded that a few of them may be keen so as to add their property to some type of social housing rental scheme.

The housing disaster in Spain

The drawback of entry to housing shouldn’t be completely all the way down to tourism; there are additionally structural causes. “It’s the results of leaving entry to housing virtually completely within the palms of the non-public sector, the absence of strong social housing insurance policies and the shortage of land for residential use in city areas with rising demand,” defined Professor González Reverté.

“In cities with a variety of tourism where the housing market is extremely harassed, non permanent vacationer leases exert further stress that finally ends up producing a rise in rental costs, a basic enhance within the worth of housing and, in probably the most severe instances, it forces folks to maneuver as a result of they cannot entry the property market as patrons or renters.”

For many years, actual property insurance policies in Spain have favored possession over renting and have restricted the provision of social housing. According to data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), lower than 20% of the nation’s housing inventory is for lease and solely 2.7% is social housing for lease.

This determine is in stark distinction with the common for the European Union and the OECD—shut to eight%—and, above all, with that of some nations with strong social housing insurance policies, such because the Netherlands, Austria and Denmark, where social housing leases characterize greater than 20% of the housing inventory.

The result’s that round 24% of the inhabitants is susceptible to being excluded from the housing market in Spain and 4.6 million people dwell in houses in insufficient situations, in keeping with Housing Rights Watch. In this context, the emergence of non permanent vacationer rental platforms within the early 2000s has solely exacerbated the issue.

“In conditions where entry to housing is virtually restricted to the housing inventory put in the marketplace by non-public landlords, any further actor that emerges and competes for housing out there, resembling vacationer rental platforms, places extra stress in the marketplace and results in conditions of social inequality that require particular insurance policies to scale back them, each from the viewpoint of tourism and concrete planning,” added Díaz Luque.

Motivating homeowners of vacationer lodging

The present housing drawback doesn’t have one single resolution. For the UOC researchers, the proposals put ahead so far, based mostly on completely different visions and ideologies, are geared toward rising the inventory of social housing for lease, offering subsidies that assist entry to housing supplied by the non-public sector, the releasing up of land and the promotion of development to extend provide, in addition to the event of worth {control} insurance policies and tax deductions with better ensures for landlords. In their study, nonetheless, they suggest a special different: motivating homeowners of vacationer lodging to supply their properties as social housing.

Financial incentives, resembling rising revenue, bettering high quality of life or gaining financial autonomy, are the primary motivating elements amongst individuals who provide their houses by means of vacationer rental platforms. However, as might be seen from the research by González Reverté and Díaz Luque, these coexist with different motivations, resembling assembly new folks, sharing experiences and existence with guests, and even combating loneliness.

With this in thoughts, if the fitting situations have been in place, some landlords could be keen to desert vacationer leases and provide their houses below some type of social housing rental.

“In basic, willingness to supply the house as a part of a social or regulated rental scheme is kind of low among the many group of property homeowners analyzed. However, it’s attention-grabbing to notice that there are variations relying on their pursuits.

“People whose main motivation is monetary are extra predisposed to modify to social housing rental if it continues to supply revenue by means of backed contracts. However, those that are motivated extra by social elements—resembling assembly folks or sharing experiences—are considerably extra reluctant. However, they’re keen to think about the choice of social housing rental so long as it continues to supply them with advantages from social interplay,” González Reverté stated.

“The essential conclusion of our study is that there’s potential for these small homeowners with houses out there for vacation letting to supply them in some type of social housing rental,” added Díaz Luque.

“A second conclusion is that social motivations by no means exist in isolation, however are at all times accompanied by monetary elements. This brings us to the third conclusion: the social or altruistic consciousness that property homeowners might have leads nowhere if it’s not accompanied by insurance policies to grant subsidies to transform their houses into social housing leases.”

“Our place is to replicate on discovering a 3rd technique to take care of the issue of non permanent housing, which requires negotiation between the completely different stakeholders somewhat than battle and confrontation, if we’re to profit from a useful resource—housing—with excessive potential social worth,” concluded González Reverté.

“Strong intervention insurance policies are wanted to transition from a really perfect hypothetical state of affairs—the potential supplied by property homeowners—to a tangible {reality} of changing housing into social leases.”