In Spain, housing has been leading a tragic story for years where tenants have lost out in any of its endings. When there was already an excessive demand for flats and supply shortage was cause for despair, a black cloud arrived to darken everything even more: Airbnb. Housing for tourist use expanded in large cities, further aggravating the problem of availability and what worried tenants the most: a general rise in prices.
All of this motivated many cities to legislate regulations and urban plans to regulate the market. Now, all of that could culminate in a major law that would drastically change everything: forcing cities to make vacation rental spaces do not exceed 2% of the inhabitants of each neighborhood.
The proposal. The housing law, which had been stagnant for years and buried under endless talks between the government and its partners, has finally closed. But we can wants to squeeze until the last minute to include some of its regulatory measures. One of them is to stop tourist rental homes so that they do not exceed 2% of the number of inhabitants of a stressed area (those where rental prices have risen above the reasonable threshold).
This means that, for example, in an area with 10,000 residents, no more than 200 tourist rental spaces could be offered.
Because? The goal is for there to be a limit of tourist housing in those neighborhoods where finding a flat is already difficult and expensive, and prices continue to rise. For Podemos, the idea is to prevent “vulture funds and large holders withdraw real estate from the residential market and use them for vacation rentals”. The proposal also comes at a time when the tourism sector has warned of the risk that the new housing law will promote a massive transfer of residential homes to the tourist market, where at the moment there are no price caps.
They can do it? This plan has already been brought to the negotiating table a long time ago, but it was discarded on the grounds that it invaded regional powers. And it is that, as we have learned from the past, it is not easy to determine in the tangle of legislation and jurisprudence who has housing powers in Spain. The Constitution establishes that the autonomies can assume the planning of the territory, urbanism and housing in their article 148.1. However, 149.1 says that the State is the only one in charge to establish the “basic conditions for the exercise of constitutional rights”, among which housing is included.
In addition, since the Housing Law was promoted, there is a constant fear that it will a constitutional appeal to put an end to everything achieved so far by invading those regional powers. And the Podemos amendment regarding tourist rentals could attract that debate.
The Airbnb effect on the offer. At this point, now it’s time to reflect on whether measures like this make sense. Just like we have counted on Magnet through different articles, The excess of vacation apartments also implies a drop in access to housing, especially in areas of tourist attraction. According to the conclusions of this ReviTUR study: “The withdrawal of homes from the residential market due to tourist rentals has reached dysfunctional levels to guarantee their habitability by residents”. He exposes the case of the Old Town of Seville: in Santa Cruz, tourist apartments reached 61.2% of the entire residential park.
In figures, the number of places in homes for tourist use (VUT) in the 20 main Spanish cities grew by 34.5% from the third quarter of 2021 to the fourth quarter of 2022, reaching an average of 18.1 places in tourist homes for every 100 inhabitants.
And in the prices. According to the same report, home prices in these areas rose an average of 9.1% in the 6 largest Spanish cities from 2010 to 2019, and barely 0.5% in the non-tourist neighborhoods of the same cities. As a consequence, 2.7% of the residents had to leave. This other study which we analyze in detail in other magnet item, specifically attributes to Airbnb an increase of up to 2% in the rental price. In those most affected, the cost of rented housing has grown by up to 7%.
There is more. This McGill University study attributes only to Airbnb a 1.4% rent increase in New York City. and other research concluded that for each 1% increase in the number of flats offered in the application, rental prices grew by 0.018%.
Is it all the fault of the tourist flats? Although, as we have seen, there is a certain correlation, there are other studies that deny it. The authors of other research from the Autonomous University of Barcelona They admit that Airbnb only explains part of the rental price increase: “While the effects on rents are not small, they cannot explain the bulk of the aggregate increases the city has experienced between 2012 and 2016.” The lack of new housing and strict municipal regulation could contribute to the problem, for example.
The Foundation for Applied Economics Studies (Fedea), for its part, also ensures that prohibiting for this reason is not sustained. And he defends that its positive effects on tourism must be valued.
A trend of limitations. As a result, some neighboring countries such as Portugal have ended prohibiting the granting of new licenses for short-term vacation rentals with the aim of dealing with the real estate crisis. In Paris, they also have particularly strict legislation. Personal housing can only be rented to tourists for a maximum of 120 days a year. And in Berlin, since 2018, landlords can only rent apartments to tourists for short-term stays up to a maximum of 90 days a year.
Image: Chris McCarty (Flickr)
In Magnet | Spaniards already allocate more than 30% of their income to rent in large cities