this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2025
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The measure was one of a dozen unveiled on Monday by the country’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, as the government seeks to quell mounting anger over housing costs that have soared far beyond the reach of many in Spain.

Sánchez sought to underline the global nature of the challenge, citing housing prices that had swelled 48% in the past decade across Europe, far outpacing household incomes.

“The west faces a decisive challenge: to not become a society divided into two classes, the rich landlords and poor tenants,” he told an economic forum in Madrid.

The proposed measures include expanding the supply of social housing, offering incentives to those who renovate and rent out empty properties at affordable prices and cracking down on seasonal rentals. In Spain just 2.5% of housing is set aside for social housing, a figure that lags drastically behind countries such as France and the Netherlands, said Sánchez.

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[–] mrhenry77 26 points 2 days ago (2 children)

we need this in berlin too

[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 days ago (2 children)

And everywhere else. Along with banning corporate ownership of residential property and banning short term rentals.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Wow, if corpos couldn't own residential property? Could you imagine?? Unlike a lot of ways the world is all wrong, this is such a clear-cut, actionable demand. I love it. It's so simple.

I mean they'd probably find ways to just put the deeds under individuals that are puppets for their corpo-daddies or something, but it'd be such a good impact.

Yeah, we need this.

[–] Glitterbomb 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Banning them just sounds so....bureaucratic. cant we just eat them?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

Up to them. I'm willing to compromise with a ban.

[–] frostysauce 1 points 1 day ago

All this 100% tax will do is stop the slightly less wealthy non-EU residents that are currently buying houses. People that can will just pay it despite the tax if they want it bad enough.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Can we get this in Washington State please.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

Spotted the savvy European investor.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 days ago (5 children)

I hope there is an exemption for people buying houses that they reside in full time. This type of policy is incredibly anti-immigrant otherwise.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)
[–] tb_ 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

You can rent for some time until you have your residency solved/accepted.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

My wife is on year 4 of the immigration process in the US. She's still dealing with people misunderstanding how work authorization works with recruiters when applying to roles. She applied ages ago to get the condition removed from her permanent residency. This is even working for years at major companies and making 6 figures. We also bought a home after she started the process.

I know and understand that the US immigration process is not the same as what is in Spain or any other country, but bureaucratic bullshit exists everywhere and you don't know the gotchas until you go through it yourself.

Saying someone needs to complete a process that can easily take 5+ years in some cases is just not realistic or fair. You shouldn't be forced to rent, it leaves you ripe to being exploited as an immigrant often by people who are xenophobic and bigoted.

There are ways to change the dynamic of landleeches but screwing immigrants isn't the solution. Everyone needs a place to live, nobody needs a place to rent out or to leave vacant as an investment. There should also be exceptions for things like commercial properties e.g. things zoned for business use. Shouldn't be fucking an immigrant over for opening up a gas station or restaurant to make ends meet because the locals are too xenophobic to hire foreigners (a huge issue all over the world.) ___

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 days ago

Yeah, that's what I thought too. But also it says "resident" so I guess you don't have to be a citizen to buy a house?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (5 children)

Non-EU residents. Right there in the title. If you are residing in Spain then you are a de facto EU resident.

Ffs.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

Lol I thought that at first too. Chuckling to myself like "Oh boy here go all the civilized nations putting up measures to handle the wave of fleeing U.S / U.K migrants." LOL

Of course, I sympathize though. A majority of the ones actually able to flee would be the already-well-off that would try to get their nasty little business-fingers all over everything in their new borders.

[–] [email protected] 90 points 3 days ago (4 children)

Just make it so the dwelling has to be occupied by the owner for 9-10 months a year. Every month it is unoccupied, the owner has to pay the value of a monthly rent as tax multiplied by the number of months it has been unoccupied -->

month 1 = rent x 1 month 2 = rent x 2 month 3 = rent x 3

I think that'll be hard to ignore for most landlords - foreign or not.

[–] scarabic 4 points 2 days ago

Occupancy is hard to monitor and easy to fake though. Purchases are impossible to miss and are a single point of enforcement as opposed to an ongoing burden like you’re suggesting. Though I do appreciate the spirit of your plan.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 3 days ago (23 children)

How do you confirm whether the property is occupied?

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[–] frostysauce 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The people that wanted to have an additional, part time residence in Spain that could afford it would simply pay it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

Really? A cute little apartment in the center of Madrid that would normally cost 3k a month?

Months Nominal Rent Rent Accumulated total % of original value
1 3000 3000 3000 0,15%
2 3000 6000 9000 0,45%
3 3000 9000 18000 0,90%
4 3000 12000 30000 1,50%
5 3000 15000 45000 2,25%
6 3000 18000 63000 3,15%
7 3000 21000 84000 4,20%
8 3000 24000 108000 5,40%
9 3000 27000 135000 6,75%
10 3000 30000 165000 8,25%
11 3000 33000 198000 9,90%

Let's say they bought it a 2M€. You sure they would want to let it sit empty for 9-11 months a year?

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[–] JoeKrogan 37 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I agree with the measures I hope they address companies doing it too as it could be a loophole.

We were thinking about a move to Spain soon and in years to come possibly renting out the home we buy and live in South America to be closer to family.

I imagine in this case , as a non EU resident despite being an EU citizen the tax would apply.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 days ago

I'd guess so, and that makes sense to limit the people wealthy enough to buy property and not live in Spain

Not saying you're a rich landlord

[–] [email protected] 46 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I'd have assumed that the majority of landlords were EU citizens... then remembered about Brexit.

That'll upset the brexiters, and they'll howl about the mean Spanish government...

[–] [email protected] 36 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

I remember back during the Leave Referendum that many Briton pensioners living in Spain voted Leave "To keep the Spaniards from entering 'our' country" and later were very suprised that they themselves were also impacted and had to apply to live in Spain (and apparently after the end of the transition period some even got expelled from Spain because they couldn't be arsed to register and became illegal immigrants).

[–] sensiblepuffin 35 points 3 days ago (3 children)

That is the most Brexit thing I've ever heard. The audacity to complain about the Spanish in your country while the British loudly and palely swarm Spain every summer.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago

Tbf, most of the complaining was about Poles and Romanians.

Mostly because they were the lower income additions to the EU, and the absolute poverty wages being paid in the UK farming and construction industries would have seemed like a fair deal to them.

Oh and this cunt who convinced his empty headed followers that millions of Muslims would be coming here under EU rules from famous EU member, Syria.

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[–] [email protected] 49 points 3 days ago (2 children)

On the surface it seems like a good idea: if the home isn’t going to be your primary residence you pay extra—a lot extra—to curtail a housing shortage caused in part by foreigners buying and inflating.

That said… if the issue there is anything like it is here in the states, the buyers will have more than enough capital to buy anyways and just pass the cost along to tenants… making the problem worse?

[–] [email protected] 55 points 3 days ago (6 children)

See below, the idea is for rent control to take care of that, which is part of the package. Along with the government supposedly planning to build their own company to compete.

If they were able to manage getting this implemented, which is dubious for political reasons, it probably would work, but it'd take at least a few years and there are many ways the increasingly anarchocapitalist conservative forces around it can disrupt it. We'll see. As a model for other places... it's probably a good place to start looking, it just needs a legal framework where you can deploy all of it (rent control, direct government development and rental, fiscal pressure on speculative property purchases). Just one piece alone probably won't do it.

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[–] Eatspancakes84 15 points 3 days ago (1 children)

The bigger issue is that it’s quite easy to “hide” that you are foreign. To do so, simply set up a holding in Spain that buys the house on your behalf.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 3 days ago

The legislation being proposed also has a bunch of regulation regarding Spanish holdings buying property, including rent price controls. Depending on how you look at it, forcing foreign groups to set up shop domestically and be restricted by that regulation is the entire point of the tax hike.

Spanish media were reporting recently that some existing rental holdings were starting to dump real estate in response to the rent control, at least in Barcelona.

The bigger problem will be whether the legislation package passes in Parliament, where it needs support from conservative regionalists and then gets implemented at the autonomy level (think states, if you're American), which is largely controlled by conservatives.

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