The fact that the social housing stock in Spain is insufficient has long been no secret. This is what the Ministry of Housing, organizations defending the right to decent and affordable housing, official data and even the Bank of Spain say. According to Cadastre data, revealed by elDiario.es, properties owned by administrations, entities and public bodies only represent around 1% of the total. There are a total of 257,000 units.
The data published by this editorial team following information provided through the Ministry of Finance, following a request for public information protected by the transparency law, does not include the territories of Euskadi and Navarra. In addition, they take into account the cadastral reference and your NIF, so what belongs to agencies, entities or public bodies counts as public housing, but not those which, although they are, are configured as limited companies, like municipal companies, For example. According to the Special Social Housing Bulletin 2020, by adding all the hypotheses and including social housing rented by private entities, this would represent 2.5% of the total stock.
However, of the 257,000 publicly owned housing units included in this information, not all are intended for affordable rental. Not even for rent, because those that belong to the administrations that use them for other purposes, such as their own housing for workers, are included.
As the following chart shows, homeownership in the hands of public agencies is highly fragmented, with more than 1,152 public entities owning more than 10 homes and 119 owning more than 100, for a total of nearly 210 000. However, only one accumulates more than 20% of the total. The land registry data is anonymized, despite requests from this media. Neither the Ministry of Housing nor the Ministry of Finance were able to clarify to elDiario.es, at the time of writing, which public body owns almost 50,000 properties.
How many homes does each public entity own in Spain?
The size of the circle ◯ indicates the number of housing units in each public entity. Only public entities with at least 10 housing units are displayed
Source: Cadastre. Data obtained via the transparency law. Public entities include public entities such as town halls, autonomous communities, ministries, agencies or housing organizations, but housing companies (companies) with public capital are not taken into account.
According to Cadastre data, only in the Autonomous Community of Extremadura are there more housing in the hands of public entities than of legal entities. The gap is more pronounced in the Canaries and the Balearic Islands, but it is also noticeable in Catalonia and Madrid. Precisely, tourism and the rise of seasonal rentals, but also large metropolitan areas, favor real estate concentration.
The pressure and need to expand public parkland is particularly visible “in urban areas, with greater tourist and speculative pressure, and in provincial capitals, where rents are skyrocketing and thousands of families have no income.” no access to decent housing,” explains Pablo Pérez, from the management. Union of Tenants of Madrid. However, he believes that “social housing must not only be a response to the housing emergency, but also a tool for territorial rebalancing of our cities”.
As you can see in the following map, on which you can detail municipality by municipality, the provinces with the largest percentage of housing belonging to public bodies compared to the total are Badajoz (2.84%), Cádiz (2. 68%), Huelva (2.66%) and Cáceres (2.12%).
The map of housing in the hands of public entities, municipality by municipality
Percentage of housing owned by owners who are state, regional and municipal public entities. The size of the circle indicates the number of properties
*In the public sector, public entities such as town halls, autonomous communities, ministries, agencies or housing organizations are taken into account, but housing companies (companies) with public capital are not taken into account . Source: Land registry, Data obtained via the transparency law
By city, among those with more than 35,000 inhabitants, only Ceuta and Melilla have 10% or more of the total social housing stock. Next come La Rinconada, in Seville, with 6.6% and La Línea de la Concepción (Cádiz) and Huelva, with 5.7%. On the other side of the scale, there are 104 localities that do not have even 1% of residential properties owned by public entities.
For years, housing policies have served to divert properties built with public money on public land to individuals. In the decade following the bubble, a good portion of these sales went to vulture funds. The most striking example is that of the 1,860 protected apartments that the then mayor of Madrid, Ana Botella, sold to Blackstone in 2013 for 128.5 million euros, or less than 70,000 euros per unit. . But the transfer to the free market goes much further.
“We know what didn’t work, it was the confiscation, the free sale of social housing to individuals and even to vulture funds: resources which should have served the general interest. If they had not been sold on the open market, today we would have 2.5 million social housing units in Spain,” said the sector’s minister, Isabel Rodríguez, in an interview with elDiario.es.
The calculation carried out by the Madrid Tenants Union goes much further. “If we start with Franco’s social housing policy, in Spain social housing has always been built to be privatized after 10 or 15 years. If the current stock of housing built on land with public aid remained public, it would represent between 40 and 60% of the total,” says Pérez, who emphasizes that “all administrations have given priority to policies aimed at stimulating the private market , instead of guaranteeing access to decent housing for all.
Very far from the European average
The 257,000 housing units held by public administrations and bodies represent barely a tenth of the calculation made by the Spanish government. To these, however, we must add those managed by public companies, which appear in the land registry as property of private entities. In total, public parks represent around 2.5% of the total, well below the European average of 9.3%. The Executive is committed to closing this gap. The coalition agreement signed between the PSOE and Sumar even envisages increasing investments to reach 20%.
During the 2023 electoral cycle, the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, announced the creation of 183,000 affordable rental housing units. These include those of Sareb, new constructions and developments promoted by the State Land Entity (Sepes). In recent months, the Executive has made another commitment: “Not one euro or state land for housing in which public perpetuity is not guaranteed,” assured Rodríguez. The ministry’s powers are limited, but it can condition the funds that communities receive under the State Plan. The objective is to put pressure on these administrations to protect public parks “in perpetuity”.
The Bank of Spain has also defended the importance of increasing the public stock. In a report published in October, the regulator questioned whether, given the “scale of the housing problem”, “isolated short-term” solutions could resolve access difficulties, but stressed the “need to continue to make progress in increasing the number of housing units.” social housing stock for rent at affordable prices.
