Protest at Madrid Photo: David Canals / Sopa Images / Shutte / Shutterstock Editorial / Profimedia
Hundreds of thousands of people marched in about 40 Spanish cities to protest against growing rents and lack of accessible housing in a country that enjoy the largest economic growth in Europe, but suffer from a severe crisis of housing, amplified by growing tourism, Reuters informs.
The Spanish central government has tried to maintain a balance between attracting tourists and immigrants to occupy the available jobs and to keep accessible rents for ordinary citizens, given that the short-term rentals have increased considerably in the big cities and localities on the coast.
“It does not matter who governs, we must defend the right to the house,” the participants in the Madrid march, where over 150,000 people marched through the center of the capital, according to the local association of tenants.
The rents in Spain have doubled in the last decade, and the prices of the houses have increased by 44%, which far exceeds the rate of increase of wages, shows the idealistic real estate site. Meanwhile, the number of housing housing has been halved since 2020.
“They give us all outside to make room for tourists,” says Margarita Aizzuru, a 65 -year -old resident of the Lavapies neighborhood. Nearly 100 families in her block were notified by the owners that their rental contracts will not be renewed.
The associations of owners and experts say that the current regulations discourage long -term rentals, and the owners make higher and safer profits if they rent tourists or foreigners for a few days or months.
Spain had a record number of tourists in 2024, of 94,000,000 inhabitants, thus being the second most visited country in the world, to which are added thousands of immigrants so that the deficit of housing was estimated by the Bank of Spain at 500,000.
According to official data, only 120,000 new homes are built in Spain every year – a saddle from the 2008 financial crisis – even more worse.
Wendy Davila (26 years old) claims that the problem is not just in the center of the city, the rents being too big “everywhere”. “It is not possible that, in order to live in Madrid, to divide an apartment with four other people,” says the woman.
