The Bottom Line opinion
Stranger things have happened...
Columnist Ignacio Lillo ponders the housing crisis engulfing Malaga province
Ignacio Lillo
Malaga
Friday, 25 October 2024, 15:20
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Ignacio Lillo
Malaga
Friday, 25 October 2024, 15:20
As a marketing strategy, it's certainly priceless... The spokesperson for a group of people affected by rental prices in major cities threatens that all ... tenants (meaning, those who belong to this group) will go on strike and stop paying rent en masse and in an organised way. Congratulations, they've achieved exactly the desired effect, which was to grab the public's attention.
Among the audience of this bravado on prime-time television, later echoed by thousands on social media, there were surely plenty of small landlords—everyday investors who managed to buy a second home at the beach or in the countryside with their life savings. Or who, despite the extra effort, weren't forced to sell their first home when they upgraded to a larger house for their families.
There were also heirs, wondering what to do with their grandparents' flat now that they're gone. Couples at the stage where they've decided to live together and move into a bigger and better-located place. Parents who bought property to pass on to their children when they needed it, and a long list of similar cases. Because when we talk about owners of two or more properties, let's not forget that the vast majority—in Spain in general, and in Malaga in particular—are in the hands of small savers, families like yours and mine, who aren't speculators, funds, or professional investors. Just ordinary middle-class people who have made sensible decisions, nothing more, nothing less.
In light of the unsettling warnings from the tenants' spokesperson, overnight, most of the properties owned by small savers will vanish from the public rental market. Until now, landlords faced a grim outlook, with the constant threat of tenants who refuse to leave and the fear of having to endure years of costly legal battles to reclaim their properties. The call for mass non-payment has been the final blow. So, those flats will remain closed, waiting for more stable times, or, at best, they'll go up for sale.
Meanwhile, estate agencies and companies are free to carry on as usual, with a blank cheque to raise prices infinitely, backed by solid legal teams to handle any intimidation. Given this scenario, it makes me wonder whether these groups of tenants struggling with rent might be sponsored by vulture funds. It's a far-fetched idea, I know, but stranger things have happened...
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