In the absence of effective policies, please. Faced with the unstoppable rise in rents and the imminent danger of a tenant strike, the Government has chosen to go directly to landlords to ask them to rethink their prices. It has done so by appealing to “solidarity” and through the mouth of the sector minister, Isabel Rodríguez García, who argued yesterday on the SER network that rents are set according to what tenants’ pockets can bear.

This is the Administration’s latest attempt to tackle the housing problem, which has become one of the biggest headaches for Spaniards due to the failure of the “price ceiling” system applied only in a few regions.

The real question is: Will the petition be implemented?

Message to homeowners. Housing Minister Isabel Rodríguez gave a clear indication yesterday of the extent to which rising housing prices have become a major problem in Spain, something that is already reflected in CIS population surveys. During an interview on the SER network’s ‘La Ventana’ programme, the socialist leader called on landlords to rethink the rents they charge their tenants.

The message was clear. And it focused on two main ideas. The first is “solidarity”. The second is a focus on small property owners, who get less media coverage than vulture funds or big investors, but who make up the vast majority of rental housing supply in Spain.

What exactly did he say? Given the limits faced by the price cap system designed by the government, whose implementation depends largely on the autonomous communities, there is another solution to soften rents: asking landlords directly. “I believe that Spain is a supportive country and that a large part of the rental housing stock is owned by small owners,” Rodríguez began during the interview.

“What I want from you is that you also take responsibility for this cause, for this social need, that we value the social benefits, that we value that these prices are in line with the abilities of the Spanish people.” The head of housing – and of course I believe that they must be protected, they must be taken care of because they own the majority of the rental housing stock.

Message included. That wasn’t the only message he left on rental prices. Rodríguez also expressed his dismay that Madrid has not implemented the Housing Law price index, a decision that, in the minister’s opinion, “harms” its neighbors. “Even landlords can have an advantage in terms of rental prices” [tendrían] The leader criticised Madrid President Isabel Díaz Ayuso before accusing her of acting motivated by “ideological dogmatism”.

Both the regional government and the Madrid City Council, controlled by the PP, have criticised the price index proposed by the Government as “ineffective and intrusive”. In general, the PP-led regions (the majority on the current political map) consider the adoption of the price index to be “real estate suicide” that encourages the informal economy.

Words are important… But above all, context is important, and that is what explains Rodríguez’s statements. And context is determined by a number of factors, such as the limited effectiveness of the measures adopted by the Government in recent years to ease the housing rental market. The Idealista tables show that rental costs have been rising for some time. The latest data from last month show the average at €13.1 per square metre. Ten years ago, in the same month of 2014, this figure was only €7.2/m2.

The mismatch between supply and demand is also leading to fierce competition for housing in some cities, with more than a hundred applicants for each available apartment, and landlords increasingly demanding when choosing tenants. The Madrid Tenants Union has called for demonstrations in October precisely because of the relentless rise in prices, and there is already talk of an even more drastic measure: encouraging a rent strike.

Images | La Moncloa 1 and 2 and Ján Jakub Naništa (Unsplash)

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