The purpose of this study is analyze the causes of the current situation in which the housing rights of Spaniards are being threatened as the geographical boundaries of Spain's housing space are being torn down in that global financial capital has tur...
The purpose of this study is analyze the causes of the current situation in which the housing rights of Spaniards are being threatened as the geographical boundaries of Spain's housing space are being torn down in that global financial capital has turned into a major shareholder of Spanish real estate. The most fundamental cause that allowed global private equity funds to intervene in Spain was the country's housing deregulation policy and the phenomenon of housing financialization. In order to reveal this relationship, the process of housing financialization was analyzed from the institutional and economic aspects before and after the global financial crisis, and the new housing crisis phenomenon, spanish civil society's active response (the squatter movement) against it, and the approval of the “Housing Rights Act”(or the “Proyecto de Ley por el Derecho a la Vivienda”) were dealt with in turn. I will examine how these consequences will affect the future the Spanish government's new “alternative urbanization” housing strategy.
Prior to 1997, the policy to promote housing construction was aimed at stabilizing housing prices due to stockpiling of traditional means of housing and an increase in housing supply. Despite having the highest housing production in Europe during 1997-2007,, Spain experienced a housing price bubble. In addition, the deregulation and restructuring implemented to liquidate the real estate market after the global financial crisis seems to have revitalized the housing market, in fact however, public property is transferred to global private equity firms and the lack of actual residential housing stock, public rental housing amid shortages, rising housing prices and rental prices, evictions have emerged as a new housing crisis.
The results of this study are as follows:
First, Spain has consistently granted tax relief to home ownership since the era of developmentalism under Franco in the 1960s, as well as under the post-Francoist government in 1976. This policy was a major reason why public rental housing policies were discontinued in Spain. In particular, the Reform Of Land Use Planning Act of 1997/1998 fully delegated authority for urban planning to local governments, laying down a steppingstone for promoting pro-growth policies more quickly. To maintain the development-oriented housing policy, the distinction between “developable” land and “rural” land was abolished to convert all lands into the “developable” status. In addition, the housing market price was reflected in the new land evaluation system. The purpose of policies that promoted housing construction was to stabilize housing prices through the stockpiling of homes via traditional means and to increase the overall housing supply. However, between 1997 and 2007, Spain experienced a high housing price bubble even while implementing the largest housing construction project in Europe.
The cause of this housing price bubble was partly due to a policy change in Spain that increased the mortgage-backed lending rate to 80% and allowed savings banks to freely issue mortgage-backed securities. Control of savings banks was also transferred to local governments. In particular, when Spain joined the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1986, foreign investments flowed in and the introduction of low interest rates fueled the real estate boom in Spain. In the process, household savings declined, while mortgages to finance home purchases peaked between 1997 and 2006, along with house prices.
As a result, as housing prices plummeted in the aftermath of the global financial crisis and evictions increased due to non-payment of mortgages, the Spanish government faced a crisis of having to deal with a large amount of non-performing housing loans. Therefore, the Spanish government has laid the foundation for the inflow of multinational investors represented by global private equity funds through deregulation such as the establishment of SAREB, introduction of REITs, and revision of the “Urban Rental Law”. As a result of this restructuring of housing into liquid and globalized assets, multinational investors have been able to purchase large quantities of devalued real estate assets at a fraction of their market value. After that, they easily raised the rental price or resold it later to make a profit. This Spanish policy readjustment connects Spain's housing market to global private equity, demonstrating the way debt is modified into the financial system and the transition to a system in which all dispossession transcends the boundaries of time and space. Since then, a new housing crisis phenomenon of eviction has appeared amidst the lack of actual residential housing stock, the lack of public rental housing, and the increase in housing prices and rents. An organized housing movement calling for a real expansion of housing benefits is also based on these evictions. It has led to various judicial lawsuits led by housing rights activists, organizations of damaged tenants, and leftist parties, but to this day, evictions are to be continued being ignored the housing rights in Spain.
Second, this study examined the concept of an autonomous city and the theoretical background of one of its strategies, the occupation movement(or squatting movement). After the intervention of global private equity funds, a new housing crisis emerged in Spain, amidst a lack of actual residential housing stock, a shortage of public rental housing, and rising housing prices and rents. As a result, PAH's national squatter movement, which insisted on the practical guarantee of housing rights, centered on the evictees, took place. Using the occupation movement in Spain as an example, I analyzed how the Spanish civil society, which had been evicted by the housing financialization policy, presented the alternatives at the political level. Above all, demands such as ‘guaranteeing housing rights, prohibiting forced eviction without alternative housing, expanding public rental housing, and revising the city rental law’, which PAH claims, led to approval of the “Housing Rights Act” in May 2023. It includes amendments to public rental housing expansion, real estate overheating district declaration and regulations, eviction measures, land law for securing affordable rental housing, urban rental law, real estate tax, personal income tax, etc.
The significance of this paper lies in the fact that the structural causes of the housing crisis in Spain are linked to the process of housing financialization. By analyzing these structural causes, it can be used as an opportunity to clarify the reasons why similar trends in housing financialization appear in different ways in each country and region. Housing financialization affects all countries of the world in a similar direction, but the manner and timing of it is uneven across particular countries. Therefore, it is necessary to be able to explain such characteristics through political and economic analysis. Taking a detailed look at the institutional and financialization of a country's housing policy through Spain's experience allows us to gauge the possibility of a housing crisis potentially implied by the current Korean housing market. In this regard, this study concludes by examining the lessons that Spain's housing financialization study can suggest to Korea's housing situation in the conclusion section.