The slow agony of housing rental in Spain: What went wrong?
Spain promoted renting as an alternative to buying for years, but the lack of supply and rising prices have turned plan B into a problem.
The slow agony of rental housing in Spain: What went wrong?
Renting has ceased to be a viable option for some of the population. The magnitude of this shift is paradoxical, considering that for years governments and experts advocated for promoting rental housing over homeownership. The benefits of renting, according to them, are plentiful. It provides citizens with housing choices tailored to their life stage, encourages workers to be more mobile geographically, reduces household debt, and offers greater flexibility in response to changes in family income.
This vision was encapsulated in the preface of the 2009 Law on measures to foster and streamline the rental process and energy efficiency in buildings, which aimed to boost rental housing. During José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero's second government (PSOE), this law was enacted specifically to encourage renting, which at the time accounted for only about 11% of the residential market, far below the European average of around 40%.
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