Spain’s housing crisis is a ‘political choice’ to protect wealthy property owners at the expense of younger generations, claims top researcher

SPAIN’S crippling housing crisis is not a market failure but a deliberate ‘political choice’ designed to protect the wealth of property owners, a leading sociologist has warned.

Javier Gil, a top researcher at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), claims the country has entered a devastating new era of ‘rentier capitalism’ that is quietly fracturing society.

His controversial new book. Generacion inquilina The academic argues in (Generation Rent), that housing is not primarily used as a home, but rather as an asset to be used by property owners to enrich themselves and their investment funds.

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Gil, in an interview for national newspaper, explained that the rentier economy does not produce wealth. It simply redistributes it upwards. El Pais This week.

A harsh reality is biting across Spain’s popular expat areas. A deep economic divide is emerging on the Costa del Sol and Costa Blanca, as well as the Balearics.

Older generations that bought villas 20 years ago now have unprecedented equity. 

Meanwhile, the new wave of younger residents are being structurally priced out, routinely facing rents of over €1,500 a month for basic apartments in coastal hubs like Malaga and Palma.

Gil highlights the grim math facing the young generation: historically, a Spanish house cost three years’ salary of the average worker. 

In today’s highly competitive markets, young workers need up to 20 years of their wages to purchase the same amount.

Gil claims that the Spanish political class is actively working to maintain this bubble, rather than fixing it. 

The financial gap was filled by favorable regulations for investment funds and the failure to cap tourist apartments. Governments are now afraid to implement any policy which could cause property values to fall.

This goes back to 2008, the year of the financial crash. 

In a desperate attempt to save bankrupt institutions and eliminate a large surplus of vacant, repossessed houses, the government opened the door wide for foreign investment. 

They created ‘Golden Visas’ to lure wealthy expats, offered massive tax breaks to investment funds to buy up housing blocks, and turned a blind eye to the explosive, unregulated growth of tourist flats to boost the economy.

The panic measures worked, artificially inflating the market back to life – but created a new trap.

If the government lowers house prices today to help young tenants, they will wipe out their primary source of wealth, which is the home that 75% who vote own. 

This would also destroy the budgets and services of coastal towns, who rely heavily upon property taxes and lucrative licenses for construction to fund their local services.

Gil claims the political class has to maintain the bubble in order to keep it intact. 

The coast is the best place to see this choice. 

While many town halls lament the lack affordable housing for workers in their area, they also continue to speed up luxury mega-developments while wooing foreign investors, knowing that the boom in high-end properties is vital to the municipal budget.

Gil warns of the dangers of sacrificing a renter generation to protect owners, as it will lead to mass frustrations and drive disenfranchised youngsters towards political extremism.

Gil warned that “all bubbles will eventually burst.” “This one is sustained by political intervention… but the social cost is enormous.”

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