If an average citizen in the Canary Islands needs 51% of their salary to pay the rent for a home, the precarious salaries of the young people of the archipelago mean that they have to dedicate more than 100%, according to the latest report from the Emancipation Observatory of the Spanish Youth Council.
A large part of the problem is the lack of protected housing. Only 2.5% of the total housing in Spain is officially protected or affordable housing, the same percentage as in Bulgaria.
Only Portugal with 2%, and Romania with 1.5%, have a lower percentage of this type of property in the European Union, according to data from the real estate consultancy Jones Lang LaSalle Incorporated (JLL).
Official data shows that the production of protected housing in Spain has been stagnant since 2013, the year in which the economic crisis hit the real estate market the hardest.
In the last decade, some 8,600 protected homes have obtained the definitive qualification on average per year (including state and regional plans), well below the average of the 20 previous years (almost 59,000 units per year), according to data from the Ministry of Housing and Urban Agenda (MIVAU).
In addition, historically, Spain opted for a model focused on the sale of protected housing, relegating rent to the background. This strategy, combined with land laws that facilitated the transition of homes to the free market, contributed to a chronic shortage of affordable rental housing.
Protected housing in Europe
In the European context, the availability of protected rental housing varies considerably from one country to another. At the top of the table is the Netherlands with 30%, followed by Austria with 24% and Denmark with 20.9%.
Next are Sweden with 19% and Finland with 13%. In contrast, Luxembourg presents a modest 5.1%, while Belgium and Germany show low figures, with 6.5% and 3.9% respectively.
In Central Europe, the Czech Republic and Slovakia share figures close to 9%, while Hungary is at a modest 3%. Slovenia presents a 6%, reflecting an intermediate commitment to protected rental housing in the region.
