Although much emphasis is placed on The lack of supply is the main lever that is driving up housing prices and complicating its accessibility, some actors in the real estate sector are beginning to draw attention to the fact that perhaps it is not only necessary to boost the construction of housing to solve access problems but also improve public transportation to make potential supply viable in peripheral areas.
The last to do so was the real estate portal Floors.com. The website has confirmed that the rental price reached an average price per square meter of 13.94 euros in October, which represented a monthly increase of 1.09% and a year-on-year increase of 17.24%.
The rise in rents is creating an “increasingly tight” market, according to Pisos.com. “The lack of rental housing supply drives up prices. Rental demand continues to be eminently urban, and Although many tenants move to the peripheries, it is difficult for the idle stock in poorly connected locations to become effective supply.”explained the Director of Estudio des piso.com, Ferrán Font.
The director of this website is not the only one who thinks that the suburbs can be a solution to the housing problem but that the limitations of public transport constrain its potential. In the presentation a couple of weeks ago of its new statistical website, the notaries pointed in the same direction as Font.
After ensuring that the housing problem requires a multifactorial solution, Alberto Martínez Lacambra, director of the Technological Center of Notariesassured that a possible measure for the problems of access to housing would be to improve the public transportation network. Lacambra affirmed that public transportation that works would reduce the demand for housing in the large capitals, where the pressure of demand and prices is greater, and move it to other parts of its metropolitan area, where the price of housing is much lower.
“Public transportation has a perfect correlation with housing. When we improve public transportation, we increase the territorial area and, therefore, we increase the availability of land”Lacambra argued.
Taking the data available to these professionals, the person in charge of the notary technology center stated to support his argument that, with good public transport, “one can go to live in Rivas, Getafe, Leganés or Alcorcón, and reduce the price of housing by 50%.” In the case of Barcelona, he assured that in Mataró, Tarrasa or Sabadell the prices are much lower than those in Barcelona. “Going to live 20 or 30 kilometers from where your father or mother-in-law lives is not the defeat of any generation. In fact, he added that it is normal in other large cities around the world”he concluded.
More aid in the Housing Plan
Real estate agencies have also emphasized the need to improve public transport to address the housing problem. The Federation of Real Estate Associations (FAI) proposed in the public consultation prior to the Draft Royal Decree regulating the next State Housing Plan 2026-2029 to provide peripheral areas with services and communications that make it easier to live in those towns and work in the big city.
As the Bank of Spain revealed in its 2023 annual report, there are 4 million empty homes in Spain.
However, as the institution directed by José Luis Escrivá points out, a priori, “the ability to increase the supply of housing through the mobilization of empty homes would be relatively limited, since a good part of them are concentrated in areas with less demographic dynamism.”
As the document explains, Among municipalities with less than 10,000 inhabitants, where nearly 20% of the population resides, 45% of empty homes are located. But in the cities with the greatest demand, those with 250,000 inhabitants, empty homes represent 7.5% of their total housing stock – and 10.5% of the national stock of empty homes -, which would be equivalent to about 400,000 units and would bring the total to four million.
What for Font is not a solution is, as the Government intends, to tax these homes more. In that case, he warns, instead of going into the rental market, they will go into the buying and selling market and will go into the hands of investors.