In recent months, through various media outlets, the truth is the truth Difficulty in accessing home, regardless of residence. If it is more difficult to achieve one of the rights included in the constitution in the large Spanish capitals, the same difficulty is transferred to other medium-sized cities, regardless of their capital status. The problem also occurs in Gandhi And, in view of the various studies carried out, it is one of the most profitable cities to buy and rent a house due to the lack of supply and strong demand.
The purpose of this article is to explain the causes and possible solutions to this situation. This problem is very multifaceted because it is related to various causes that, although they appear independent, have a high cause-effect relationship.
1.- Population. Population of Gandia has increased in the last 6 years. According to INE (Table 1.1), the maximum population drop reached during the real estate bubble (80,020 people at the end of 2008) did not return until 2017 (73,829) and this time, until December 2023. The provisional figure, 81,368 people registered in the municipal register, is difficult to drop below 80,500 people in the absence of the corresponding purge for forgery carried out by the INE. That means a record number of residents in our city and nearly 3,000 more people than a year ago.
2.- Economy. One may wonder what accounts for the faster population growth of the Comunitat Valenciana (+2.14%) or Candia (+2.89%) compared to the rest of the state (+1.06%, Table 1.3) with other regions (+1.87%). One possible reason is Gandhi It is perceived as the most likely place to create a life plan To be a very active city, a very dynamic productive capacity, a low crime rate and a solid, vigorous and reliable institutional position are confirmed by some positive socio-economic indicators. As a result, our city It has the second largest population of over 45,000 people and has seen the largest drop in unemployment over the past year. (continuing the trend of the last three years), as shown by the latest February data published last week (Tables 2.1 and 2.2), where the decrease is twice that of the entire Valencian community.
3.- Market. The influx of new residents to Kandia directly affects the increase in its aggregate demand Emergence of new on-demand services and emerging market niches. But, as with everything in economics, there are always externalities: Since housing is a basic need, the asynchrony between population growth and housing availability causes market imbalances. According to a study by real estate portal Idealista.com with samples from 2010, this clearly shows A clear correlation between population growth and rental housing prices. As can be seen between the two line graphs (graphs 3.1 and 3.2), the price per square meter grew steadily from 2017 and rose from 2021, reaching €7.4/m2 in 2023, paralleling the significant increase in population recorded in Gandia.
4.- Disposable income. Since the real estate crash of 2008, The new construction market has yet to recover. If initially this was due to a large stock of unsold houses, at this time costs per square meter have increased due to current construction quality requirements and current financial conditions for developer credit (Figure 4.1). But what greatly affected its stagnation was the difficulty of finding demand for a product expensive to the income levels existing in our city. As Table 4.2 shows, the average disposable income of a taxpayer after tax in Candia is €19,908, a small amount that can cover a medium-sized mortgage.By absorbing more than 30% of salaryIf it's the only income in the household, the current construction anemia isn't a question of too many houses being built or a lack of available land, but rather a mismatch between affordability versus current norms. of buyers, depending on their income levels.
5.- (In) Legal Protection. With a low new construction market and skyrocketing rental prices, what can be done? One of the solutions is to remove existing vacant houses (estimated at several thousand) in order to eliminate potential tenants. The pure law of supply and demand: With a greater supply of rental housing, in theory, prices will fall. But the question is not so simple. True or not, The current perception of legal uncertainty prevents empty properties from being released to the market The situation creates the paradox that owners often prefer to give up sweeter rents rather than replenish their property. At present that is the collective mind-set that creates the paradox of high demand for rental housing and a large stock of vacant housing at the same time.
All of these factors described create a perfect storm This leads to a lack of owned and rented housing And real estate market prices are clearly depressing. Knowing this, the Government of Gandia has proposed a few measures to the representatives of the sector, who have enriched them after different meetings, and whose aim is to formulate a strategy to stimulate the housing market. Jurisdiction as a local government and its own budget limits.
And, within those possibilities, A triple action has been launched It covers heritage, tax and urban aspects, providing tangible solutions that have already been widely reported in this newspaper. Gandhi Mayor pointed out that one of the main challenges of the current legislature Address the housing issue in our city as a priority, anything easy to solve (as mentioned above) or instant results. But as far as Leonardo da Vinci is concerned, problems are not solved, they are solved, so we must not lose ourselves in the face of the difficulty of the challenges and rebel against time.
