In the Community of Madrid there are 43 municipalities in which at least one owner has more than 50 residences in his name.
The most striking case is that of the capital of Spain, where up to 175 owners are in this situation (for a total of 387 in the entire region) and 312 have up to fifty.
This concentration of apartments and chalets in a few hands does not only affect large municipalities, such as Alcalá (16) or Getafe (15).
It also reproduces in small towns, such as Velilla de San Antonio (1), Tielmes (1) or Villanueva de la Cañada (1).
This is clear from a database prepared for EL PAÍS through the Ministry of Finance with data from the cadastre, where the same home can have several owners, and which reflects that in the region there is an impressive concentration of large residence owners: only In the city of Madrid there are 7,106 who own at least ten, and 6,110 who own at least five, figures that skyrocket to 10,625 and 9,118 in the region as a whole, which affects the price of rentals, which It is at historic highs, and sales, as it affects thousands of houses.
Despite this, the Government of Isabel Díaz Ayuso refuses to apply the rent caps established by the state housing law.
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“There has been an attempt to build the idea that the prototype of a landlord is a grandmother who rents an apartment to complement her pension,” says ironically Jorge Moruno, a Más Madrid deputy specialized in the housing market who knows that in the Community of Madrid There are 3,636 registered companies that rent three or more homes and 1,507 that rent ten or more, because this is what the government has detailed in an official response sent to the Assembly to which EL PAÍS accessed.
“The idea has also been conveyed that the weight of rental companies is marginal,” he adds.
“Both statements are false, at least if we refer to large cities and stressed areas, which is where the main problem of access to housing is concentrated,” warns Moruno, who maintains that price regulation is also in the interest of the owner. .
“This is confirmed by a study by the
London School of Economics
.
Because?
Because balanced prices offer stability, reduce [tenant] turnover and increase payment guarantees.”
The consequence of this concentration of homes is not harmless.
Ten years ago, you could rent a 70-square-meter house in Madrid with 30% of your salary, according to the real estate portal Fotocasa.
With that same amount, now only one of 39 square meters could be rented.
Thus, in February 2014, an average of 9.8 euros per square meter was paid in the region, and 11.2 in the capital, according to data from the
Idealista
real estate portal .
These figures have now skyrocketed to their record figure, 16.8 and 18.7 euros, respectively.
That is, to rent an 80 square meter apartment in the Community of Madrid you have to pay an average of 1,344 euros per month, which reaches 1,496 in the case of the capital.
Despite the upward spiral, which includes the fact that rental prices have risen by 12.8% in Madrid in the last year, according to Fotocasa, the regional government does not consider it appropriate to establish rent caps that would affect large holders such as Blackstone, CBRE , Caixabank, Renta Corporación or Cerberus, with thousands of homes under their belt.
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“We do not believe in the declaration of stressed areas, because it attacks the right to property, invades competencies and are initiatives that raise prices and lower supply,” says a spokesperson for the regional government.
But that positioning does not stop the opposition for now.
First, the town councils of Getafe, Fuenlabrada and Alcorcón, governed by the PSOE, asked the Community to declare their municipalities as a stressed area.
Given the negative response for the first two, which will predictably be similar in the case of the third, the socialist mayor of Alcorcón, Candelaria Testa, has decided to explore a new path with the support of the general secretary of her party Juan Lobato: take it to the Assembly regional a proposed law to regulate the declaration of areas stressed by the excessive price to pay to buy or rent housing, with the aim of establishing limits that facilitate the emancipation of the population.
“The problem is not that there are large owners with many homes, it is that they have many homes and they are empty and unrented because they are speculating on their value,” says Lobato.
“What these large owners have to do is pay the estate tax, which until now they are not paying,” he claims.
“That will energize the market.
The underlying problem is the lack of public housing in Madrid, where we have 1%, and where nothing has been done for a long time.”
As the PP enjoys an absolute majority in the regional Parliament, it is foreseeable that the PSOE initiative will not go ahead.
When that happens, if it happens, the problem of access to housing will still be there.
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