houses

Beyond prices and vacation rentals, housing in Madrid faces a huge problem: irregular houses

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Beyond price escalation, the pressure of the vacation rental or the decoupling Between the speed at which homes are created and new buildings built, in Madrid the real estate market faces a tricky challenge: irregular developments. The latest data of the Community of Madrid reveal that in the region there are dozens of settlements of illegal origin that bring together thousands of homes that start from an irregular situation. all one hot potato for administration. What has happened? The data has revealed it The Newspaper. The Community of Madrid has registered almost 200 developments built without the necessary permits, settlements of illegal origin that add up to thousands of homes. The calculation is based on an update of the inventory from the 1980s, when 136 irregular settlements were identified. The figure has changed since then for two reasons. The first, because there were nuclei that have managed to regularize themselves. The second, because the technicians have added to the list others that (for one reason or another) did not appear in the catalog that accompanied the 1985 regulations. What do the figures say? If you walk around Madrid you can find dozens of housing units built without respecting the regulations. Some very populous. Specifically, The Newspaper talks about 184 urbanizations or settlements of illegal origin and some 10,500 homes. The figure is partly explained because the 1980s census incorporated almost a hundred new consolidated residential areas. The Ministry of the Environment clarifies that in most cases they are the result of “urbanization processes outside the law” and “lacking planning”, which explains why they often do not offer “minimum conditions for urbanization.” Are all cases the same? Not at all. Not all urbanizations identified by the Community of Madrid are the same nor do they have the same dimensions. Particularly noteworthy is the settlement of La Vega del Tajuñawhich brings together a large part of the residences in an irregular situation detected by regional technicians. Specifically, there are 5,513 distributed over more than 2,700 hectares. With those dimensions it would be the largest settlement of its kind in the community, although not the only one where hundreds of people live. In Camino Viejo de Madrid and Vega Baja del Guadarrama there are also more than 1,400 buildings and there are others, such as El Rondelo, Pico Valsarón or Dehesa Nueva, with hundreds of homes. The Community has also noted constructions located in locations very close to the capital, such as Improved Field. How is that possible? The circumstances and context are not always the same, but a few days ago EPE visited a nucleus of Mejorada del Campo that helps to understand how settlements like this can be formed in the heart of Madrid. Specifically, the newspaper visited a nucleus that began to form in the 1980s, driven by developers who parceled out rural land and sold the land at affordable prices, offering it as an ideal space for “urban gardens” with access to water. Time, use and the increasing pressure that affect housing prices in Madrid did the rest. What were initially huts designed for tools gave way to more ambitious installations. Is it something new? Not at all. And not only because the history of these settlements can go back a long time. At the end of 2025, the Community of Madrid has already issued a statement in which he recalled that in just four years he had inspected 1,906 “irregular constructions” on protected land. To be precise, the regional government spoke of 5,334.3 hectares “affected by this type of settlements”, also identified in 56 municipalities. “Of them, about 80% are concentrated in the plains of the main Madrid rivers, the majority in the areas of the Tajuña River (2,712.5 hectares), followed by the Jarama (1,019.5), Guadarrama (363.2) and Tajo (150.2)”, explains the Madrid Executive, which warns of the “risk” it represents “both for people and the environment.” Hence, this type of construction appears among the objectives of the Urban Inspection and Discipline Plan. Does it only happen in Madrid? No. Settlements of this type are also common in other parts of Spain, such as Catalonia. “There are many urbanizations that were built in the 60s, 70s and early 80s of the 20th century, which were marketed without the necessary planning, urban management or basic public services,” recognize from the Catalan Generalitat. “Of the 1,433 identified in the 2015 catalogue, there are 730 with urban deficits. Many are concentrated in small municipalities and the tendency to convert housing estates into primary residences aggravates their situation,” acknowledges the regional government. The topic is complex because, as remember EPE When talking about the Madrid case, the legal framework varies over time: if a home built on non-developable land remains long enough outside the ‘radar’ of the authorities, the crime expires and can no longer be demolished. Images | Community of Madrid Via | The Newspaper In Xataka | Madrid believed itself immune to the TukTuk plague in the most tourist cities in the world. Now someone wants to ban them

What happens in some houses so that the power goes out and the leads do not jump?

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It is a classic scene that has happened to almost all of us at some point, you are at home preparing dinner, you take the opportunity to put on a washing machine and, suddenly, the house goes completely dark. You go to the electrical panel expecting to find the classic switch down, but to your surprise, they are all perfectly up. This is a more common situation than it seems and one that generates deep confusion in homes. Far from being a paranormal phenomenon or a serious breakdown, the answer to this modern enigma is hidden in the technology of our meters. The answer to this everyday mystery has been popularized by Juanjo, an electrician known on the social network TikTok as @juanjo_grounding. According to this professional, when the power goes out but no protection on the house panel goes off, “it is because the meter’s ICP has gone off.” The reason is as simple as it is direct: you have exceeded the power you have contracted for your home. The technology behind the “jump”. To understand it, we must first clarify that electrical power It is measured in kilowatts (kW) and corresponds to the energy that is being demanded at a specific moment. The Power Control Switch (ICP) works as a security mechanism It is fundamental that it cuts off the electricity supply if the power consumed exceeds that power that you have contracted. The key detail is that, since 2009 and with the gradual arrival of smart digital meters, many homes They no longer have a physical ICP (a switch) in your electrical wall panel, but this control function is integrated directly into the digital counter itself. Therefore, when you connect too many powerful devices at the same time, the remotely managed meter detects the excess and cuts off the electricity to avoid overloading the installation. In fact, if you look at your meter at that moment, it is very likely that you will see a solid red light, which indicates that the contracted power has been exceeded and the ICP has intervened. So what needs to be done to get the light back? Recovering power is a very quick process what you can do yourself. First, you should unplug some of the high-consuming devices you had on to reduce power demand. Then, go to your main box, lower the main circuit breaker, wait a few seconds (between 5 and 10) and raise it again. With this simple gesture, the internal ICP of the meter is reset and will close automatically, returning the light to you. To prevent this from constantly happening again, you have two alternatives: The free solution (change of habits): Carry out conscious management of your consumption. It is simply based on not connecting all your high-consumption appliances at the same time. The payment solution (increase the power): If the outages are very frequent despite normal and rational use, it is advisable to contact the electricity company and request an increase in the contracted power. You must bear in mind that increasing the power implies paying the connection, extension and access rights, which has an approximate cost of €50 for each kW you increase. The savings angle. This is where your pocketbook comes into play. In Spain, the average electrical power of homes is between 3.45 kW and 4.6 kW. Often, the fear of “leads jumping” leads us to make the mistake of hiring above our needs, paying every month for power that we are not really using. Keep in mind that each kilowatt you contract represents a fixed cost of about €60 per year on your electricity bill. Jorge Morales de Labra, expert in the energy sector, issues a very revealing warning in the magazine The Furniture: “If you haven’t blown your leads twice in a year, you have more power than you need.” A report from the National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC) supports this ideapointing out that if you avoid turning on all the devices at the same time and adjust your contract, you can save between €190 and €260 annually. If you have questions about whether you can lower your power, the answer is in your receipts. Marketing companies have the legal obligation to include on the invoice the maximum powers that you have demanded during the last year. The power of information. In short, that sudden blackout in which the electrical panel seems to mock you with all its switches on high is not a phantom failure, but rather your smart meter protecting your home. Understanding how the ICP works and auditing our consumption habits gives us control over our bill. In the end, understanding the electricity in our home is the first step to stop giving away money at the end of the month and turn on the savings light. Image | freepik Xataka | If Spain believed it had overcome the trauma of inflation, Qatar has just made a decision in the opposite direction

In 1832 Britain realized that it didn’t have much sun. Since then, a law requires that houses have good light

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If there is something that the United Kingdom could blame for its geography and climate, it is the gray days. Rare is the moment when the sun is not covered by clouds in Mary Poppins’ country, where natural light has become a scarce commodity to fight for. So much so, that there is a “right to light” by which homeowners can legally prevent new construction that obstructs natural light rays into their homes. This law is actually an easement established in 1832 by which the owner of a building with windows that have received natural light for more than 20 years has the right to prohibit adjacent constructions that limit it. That is, historically, a person was entitled to this if natural light and air had passed freely through their windows during that time and been enjoyed without disturbance. And these homes protected by the ordinance were marked with the “Ancient Lights” sign. Therefore, if a neighbor tried to violate this by building a structure or planting trees, the owner had the power to sue him for the “nuisance”. Of course, it is important to note that these do not only affect direct sunlight. But it gives the right to a minimum level of natural lighting, not direct rays of the sun. Although this urban planning law has undergone quite a few changes since its inception, the power of property owners to demand natural light continues to be debated in British cities. Nowadays, These “Ancient Lights” signs are still found on buildings around London and other counties such as Dorset and Kent. And the law, more than 100 years later, continues to be the protagonist of all types of litigation, becoming a headache for judges, lawyers and construction companies. The idea of ​​”having the right to light” Let’s go into more detail. A question that arises from this concept is: how much natural light does a person have the right to? And that is precisely where this law has several legal loopholes. Because a building owner’s windows don’t even have to be completely blocked by a neighboring obstruction for that right to be invoked. You simply have to maintain the same level of lighting that the owner has experienced for twenty years, something that is quite diffuse. In the 1920s, Percy Waldram, an expert in this law, proposed a system to standardize the sufficient amount of light that people could claim. He suggested that “common people” required at least one foot-candle (a measure of light intensity) for reading and other work. If the builder, including a homeowner planning an extension, identifies a risk affecting light rights, they must notify the affected homeowner and engage with them to reach an amicable agreement. This could be as compensation or a redesign to rectify or mitigate the problem. However, if there is a dispute, There are two ways to take legal action: damages and/or a court order. The first consists of granting a sum of money to compensate for the loss. The second may require demolition of part or all of the new building unless some other structural change can remedy the problem. The latter is usually too expensive. The idea for many years was that if a property owner did not take immediate steps to obtain a court order, the only remedy available to them was damages. However, a 2010 case left builders stunnedas the court held that it was possible to obtain an injunction even after the completion of the new building. In another more recent case from 2020the court granted an injunction to a property owner two years after the completion of the infringing work. The court found that the builder had proceeded with full knowledge of the risk he was taking. Is there a similar law in Spain? The easements They also exist in Spain. It is the right that the owner of a property has over the adjoining property that limits the proprietary powers of the owner thereof. In fact, it is not so uncommon to find cases in our country (especially in individual homes), in which Your neighbor has one or more windows that face directly onto your property. Is it legal? As regulated by the Civil Code in article 580no party wall can, without the consent of the other, open any window or opening in a party wall. Otherwise, the owner of a wall that is not a party wall and that is adjacent to the back of another owner may open windows or openings in the same wall. to receive lightsas long as it complies with the premises established in article 581 of the Civil Code. Furthermore, as stipulated in the article 582 of the Civil Code: “You cannot open windows with straight views, nor balconies or other similar overhangs, over the neighbor’s property, if there is not two meters of distance between the wall on which they are built and said property. Nor can you have side or oblique views over the same property, if there is not 60 cm of distance.” In Xataka | If your renovation is a pain, think about the house that cost 120 times more than its original cost: a masterpiece In Xataka | If the question is whether they forgot the elevator shaft in the tallest residential skyscraper in Spain, the answer is simple: it was much worse Image | Chris Flexen

We have plenty of electricity, but we lack cables to build houses and invest more

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Over the last decade, Spain has accelerated the installation of wind and solar farms, especially in “emptied Spain”, with the promise of becoming Europe’s green laboratory. However, upon reaching 2026, the system has hit an invisible but insurmountable wall: the cables. The reason is a “broken bridge”, since clean energy is born in the countryside, but does not reach the cities or factories because the transportation infrastructure does not exist or is saturated. The situation is critical. According to advance The Economistthe Spanish electricity grid has administratively “collapsed” and, for practical purposes, is closed to new projects. There is no longer room to accommodate new connection requests, which means that thousands of homes, data centers and industries are receiving a “no” answer when asking for a plug. Red Eléctrica’s technical documentation confirms this paralysis with endless lists of nodes submitted to a capacity contest, from Algeciras to Arrigorriaga, evidencing a blockade that runs through the entire peninsula. The “D-Day” that never came. The trigger for this crisis has a date and time. The electricity sector was anxiously awaiting February 2, 2026, the day on which the National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC) was to publish the new access capacity maps, the “traffic light” that indicates where there is more consumption. But the maps did not arrive. In a last-minute maneuver, the CNMC has postponed the publication until Monday, May 4, 2026. The decision responds to a critical alert launched by the system operator (REE) on January 26: under the new and strict technical criteria, “approximately 90% of the nodes in the transportation network would have zero access capacity.” The problem is deeper. On the one hand, the application of the “dynamic criterion” has revealed that more than 9 GW of already authorized demand—mainly data centers and electrolyzers—might not be sufficiently robust against “voltage dips” (sudden drops in voltage), which forces the tap to be turned off for safety. On the other hand, consensus is non-existent: Red Eléctrica and the distributors they have only achieved agree on the reference values ​​in 26% of the interconnection nodes, a figure that in the case of some distributors plummets to just 11%. A traffic jam with real consequences. Far from being a mere dispatch procedure, it has devastating consequences for the real economy. The energy plug has become the new brake on brick: Last year only 12% of connection requests for new urban developments were granted. The Asprima employers’ association estimates that some 350,000 homes are at risk of not being able to be built, not due to lack of land or money, but due to the simple lack of electrical power. The impact has specific faces. An example that they expose in The Economist is that of the Costa del Sol, where the delay in the construction of a substation in Estepona and its associated line keeps the quality of supply and the connection capacity of a total of 72 families in suspense. The investment war. There is a chronic lack of investment in basic infrastructure. While Europe invests on average 70 cents in networks for every euro of renewable generation, Spain remains at just 30 cents. This has unleashed an open war. The large electricity companies (Aelec) accuse Red Eléctrica (Redeia) of having invested below what was planned, causing the current precariousness. Redeia defends himself forcefullyensuring that it has quadrupled its investment to exceed 1.5 billion in 2025. In addition, the system operator uses devastating quality data to deny the poor state of the network: the average annual interruption time is just 0.46 minutes, a value 30 times better than the 15 minutes required by regulations. The speculative bubble. Amidst the chaos, speculation flourishes. The CNMC is finalizing a complete report—a kind of “forensic” audit—to put order in the system. According to Expansionthere are access requests for 67,100 MW, an exorbitant figure that is equivalent to half of all the installed power in the country. The regulator suspects that there are massive duplications and “ghost” projects that hoard nodes for the sole purpose of reselling permits, blocking access to real industries. Three months of heart attack. Given the seriousness of the scenario, the sector now faces a three-month truce, until May, to try to avoid the total closure of the network. Express legal route. The recent Sustainable Mobility Law has introduced an “emergency mechanism” which allows changing the purpose of positions in substations. That is, unlock spaces reserved for generation that are not used and assign them to consumption quickly. “Amnesty” for Data Centers. To prevent the flight of digital investment, the Government has activated a grace measure for 2026: has eliminated the requirement that forced data centers to consume in “off-peak hours” (at night) to receive aid, recognizing that solar energy has changed the reality of prices and that said requirement no longer made technical sense. Cost for the citizen: fixing the network it won’t be free. The proposal for 2026 includes an increase in tolls (4%) and charges (10.5%) in the electricity bill to finance these investments and the “reinforced mode” of operation, necessary to guarantee stability after the incidents of 2025. Crisis of institutional trust. Despite the extension, legal uncertainty is latent. Electricity companies fear that industries that already had access granted they can lose it when applying the new, more restrictive criteria. Óscar Mosquera, sector expert, warns on LinkedIn about a “regulatory breakdown.” “The network is no longer just infrastructure, it is an institution,” says Mosquera. His diagnosis is lapidary: “A system that invites investment and then does not connect is not prudent, it is incoherent. That is the true country risk.” While the administration looks for solutions, real demand does not wait for the bureaucracy. Joaquin Coronado highlights that the electricity demand It has grown by 3.7% at the start of January 2026, exceeding the official forecasts of the CNMC itself. The Spanish economy tries to accelerate, but physical reality prevents it. A country disconnected from its own future. Spain finds itself at an ironic and … Read more

Time magazine decided that “the architects of AI” were ‘Person of the Year’. And chaos broke out in the betting houses

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‘Time’ magazine has named ‘Person of the Year’, its traditional editorial recognition of the most relevant people of the year, to the “Architects of AI”. The topic is sensitive and controversial, and has unleashed opinions for and against the election. But it has also unleashed a parallel and unexpected tidal wave: people losing small fortunes at betting houses because of this Time decision. Beings of the year. When ‘Time’ revealed on December 11 that “AI Architects” (and not simply “AI”) would be its “Person of the Year 2025”, betting platforms Polymarket and Kalshi were plunged into absolute chaos. More than $75 million was left hanging over semantic disputes over what exactly constitutes a “person.” We are not going to go into the legitimacy of that decision or the technical quality of the cover assembly, but we can comment on how The cover effect among betting professionals brings to the table some characteristics of unregulated speculative markets that convert cultural events into casino chips. The collapse of betting. The users of Polymarket who invested more than $6 million betting on “AI” as the winner discovered that its interpretation did not match the platform’s rules. The final decision established that the title “Architects of AI” was not equivalent to designating artificial intelligence as such, giving thousands of bets as losers. The distinction was crucial: Naming those who build the technology differs radically from crowning the technology itself. In KalshiHowever, bets on individual executives (Sam Altman, Elon Musk, Jensen Huang, Mark Zuckerberg, Dario Amodei, Lisa Su and Demis Hassabis) were winners, while those who bet on corporate entities such as “ChatGPT” or “OpenAI” lost. Polymarket had more restrictive rules: betting specifically on “Jensen Huang” was a losing option, validating only the generic “Other” option. Polymarket cited an illustrative precedent: if ‘Time’ awarded “Donald Trump and the MAGA movement,” bets on Trump would win; but if the title were just “The MAGA Movement,” Trump would be excluded even if he was on the cover. Other Polymarket controversies. This scandal adds to a series of episodes that question the integrity of Polymarket. In November 2024, an unauthorized modification to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) maps temporarily showed a Russian advance on the Ukrainian city of Myrnohrad. The change allowed bettors to earn returns of up to 33,000% before ISW admitted to fraudulent editing and fire the responsible geospatial specialist. weeks latersomeone identified as AlphaRaccoon generated profits of $1.15 million by betting with suspicious accuracy on the results of the 2025 ‘Google Year in Search’. Meta engineer Haeju Jeong documented on social media that the bettor had gotten 22 of 23 predictions right, including that singer d4vd (with just 0.2% probability) would top the searches. the same user had previously won $150,000 predicting the exact launch of Gemini 3.0, which fueled accusations of privileged access to Google information. Semantic controversy. And another one from Polymarket, which got into define whether President Zelensky had worn a suit at the NATO summit in the summer of 2024. Despite more than forty global media describing his outfit as a formal suit, the resolution protocol UMA (a decentralized oracle on Ethereum that verifies real-world data for blockchain applications) ruled “No” in a series of bets that moved $242 million. Numerous media They talked about large holders of UMA tokens manipulating the result through coordinated voting. Person of the Year, or whatever. Time magazine has been deliberately stretching the definition of “person” for decades, setting precedents that preempted this year’s confusion. In 1982 he chose “The Computer” under the title “Machine of the Year”, while 1988 crowned “The Endangered Earth” as “Planet of the Year”. The 2006 edition generated controversy by awarding an indeterminate “You”, referring to all users of digital content. “The Silence Breakers” of the #MeToo movement (2017) and “US Scientists” (1960) are other examples of award-winning collective entities. In Xataka | Five years ago he worked from his bathroom on the brink of ruin. Today he runs a company valued at 8 billion

The premises that were occupied by the business reopen as tourist houses and apartments

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“That’s one and there’s another one. See that one over there? It was a bar. Now it has four rooms in it.” A neighbor speaks de Vallecas and what he points his finger to are street-level premises that once housed fruit shops, haberdasheries, drugstores, grocery stores, pharmacies or bank branches and have now mutated into homes. Some of them are home to families who have resigned themselves to going about their daily lives in spaces that, warn from a neighborhood association in the area, they are poorly ventilated. Others are dedicated to a business juicier: vacation rental. It is the umpteenth example of the tourism from Madrid. A neighborhood in transformation. The Puente de Vallecas district is changing. And in a way that does not convince a good part of its neighbors. Over the last few years, people who go about their daily lives there have found that premises that previously housed neighborhood businesses, such as fruit shops or bakeries, have lowered the blinds to reopen, converted into something very different. In what? Housing. Or (increasingly) tourist accommodation, spaces designed for millions of tourists who visit Madrid every year. The residents of Vallecas know this from the flow of tourists they see through the streets because it is not strange that the new tourist apartments located on ground floors operate 100% virtually: customers make their reservations through platforms such as Booking, pay and access through code opening systems or the padlock boxes that have become so popular in other destinations. “It is increasing”. The phenomenon is striking enough to have caught the attention of Europa Press, which recently visited the Puente de Vallecas for talks with its inhabitants and some neighborhood associations. The nuances change, but not the discourse: all the people interviewed by the agency agree that the spaces left free by the businesses that close in the area are ‘reborn’ converted into homes, either for families or (increasingly) for tourists. “It’s increasing,” Javier Moral recognizesfrom the Dona Carlota de Numancia Neighborhood Association. The emphasis is not only on this reconversion of spaces at street level, but on what it represents for the life of the neighborhood. Occupied by tourists… and families. In Moral’s opinion, new homes often do not meet “habitability conditions”, which leads him to be suspicious of the real effectiveness of habitability cells. Europa Press explains that within these converted premises you can find tourists who demand cheaper accommodation than those advertised in the heart of Madrid (without giving up being just a few minutes from Atocha station), but also families conditioned by the price escalation of the rent. The problem, Jorge Nacarino insistsfrom the Federation of Neighborhood Associations of Madrid, is that “many times” these apartments “do not meet sufficient requirements due to size or ventilation.” The trend is more important than it may seem at first glance because it does not just represent a change in use. By replacing hairdressers, shoe stores or pharmacies with tourist apartments, the neighborhood loses neighborhood “meeting points” and forces residents to travel further and further away to find basic services, such as supermarkets or a bank. The arrival of tourists low cost encourages the opening of new businesses, but above all they are self-service laundries or convenience stores. fast food. Far beyond Vallecas. The change in the use of commercial basements in neighborhoods such as Palomeras Bajas, Entrevías, San Diego or Nueva Numancia is striking, but Puente de Vallecas is not the only area that is seeing how tourism transforms its landscape. not long ago we told you how a company had transformed an old bank office into a public bathroom in the historic center of Madrid. The business ended up going bankrupt, but its objective was clear: to nourish itself avalanche of tourists who visit the city. Precisely to alleviate the effects of growing tourist pressure, the Reside Plan prevents transforming commercial basements into apartments for tourists in the historic center or converting premises into homes on the main tertiary roads. In the case of Puente de Vallecas, this shields certain areas. “Low quality”. Beyond Madrid, other cities that receive thousands of tourists every year, such as Malaga or Santiago, have noted similar changes. In the first, Malaga, the City Council prepared a report which warns that “tourist pressure can cause the expulsion of native and value-added businesses” that end up being “replaced by souvenir shops and other businesses oriented exclusively to tourists.” The report does not stop there and also warns of the creation of “illegal or low-quality accommodation.” In the Galician capital, another study has confirmed that if at the beginning of the 1990s the historic center housed some 645 businesses aimed at residents (grocery stores, clothing and furniture stores, kiosks, drugstores, pharmacies…) today there are only 202. What’s more, food stores as such have collapsed more than 70% during that period. It is not something exceptional. In other cities, such as Valencia, what they call “tourist cages”lodgings for visitors, gated and at street level. Images | Wikipedia and Daquella Manera (Flickr) Via | Europa Press In Xataka | Northern Spain has been complaining about mass tourism for years. Asturias has discovered the bitter consequences of losing it

Idealista is filling up with images of houses for sale made with AI. And it’s getting harder and harder to identify them.

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AI-generated content has flooded everything and it is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish it. The call AI Slop It is everywhere; in social networks, on Spotifyin Wikipedia…even in niches as specific as that of crochet patterns. This avalanche has made us distrust almost any image that we see online, also if you are looking for a house, just because: Idealista has also been filled with AI. house catfish. We typically use the term when a person on the Internet impersonates another person and lies about their appearance. This is what is happening on some real estate sales and rental platforms. Wired already showed some cases of images altered with AIbut it is not a trend exclusive to the United States, on platforms such as Idealista and Fotocasa many ads are also appearing with images modified with AI tools. “So you can see how it would look.” It is the excuse that many owners and real estate agencies use. What they do is enhance the photos using artificial intelligence tools so that the property appears newer than it actually is or how it would look renovated. in the advertisement what this user reports in Xthey have used AI in the image of the pool to show what it would look like if the water was clean and everything was in perfect condition. In the responses to the same post, another user shows this other ad where they have used AI to put grass in the garden of the house, with a pretty bad result by the way. What you ask for vs what you get. Click on the image to open the publication in X. More eye-catching ads. In the description of the ads that users report, they warn that AI has been used to retouch some images, but what they usually do is put the images with AI first to attract the attention of those interested. Once inside the ad, you find reality: the house is falling apart. If it is specified in the description and then they put the real photos, it is not technically a scam, but it is a rather shady strategy that adds another layer of difficulty to the already difficult task of finding a house to buy or rent. Undetectable. The first image generators were not useful for making modifications because images were basically invented, but The arrival of Nano Banana was a turning point since it allows changes to be made while being consistent with the original photo. In September Images appeared on Idealista with the Gemini watermark. We cannot know what they have removed or added, but it could be used to remove moisture or some defects without it being obvious that they have used AI. In this specific case they have left the watermark, but there will be many people who do not know what it means, not to mention that removing it is very simple. There may be many more AI-modified images that are undetectable. Idealista promotes it. In 2023 the platform published an article explaining how to take advantage of AI tools to fix ad images. They showed examples such as organizing rooms, filling swimming pools or furnishing empty rooms. They also launched ‘smart text’ to generate descriptions of the properties, a function similar to those found on other platforms such as Wallapop. Recently published another article where they warned of scams on their platform using fake image generation with AI; a confirmation that it is a fairly widespread and not always transparent practice. Image | Pexelsedited with Nano Banana Pro In Xataka | Alibaba has new Open Source AI to generate videos. The problem is that it is being used to generate pornographic deepfakes

A tiny Spanish town with 13 houses can’t take it anymore. A murder has turned it into the capital of crime tourism

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High in the Catalan Pyrenees, among clouds, forests and cows grazing in the rain, Tor risesa village of just thirteen houses where three decades ago a crime occurred that forever marked its inhabitants. In 1995 appeared the body of Josep Montanéknown as Sansa, with an electric cable around his neck and the corpse dragged to his kitchen. It was the third murder in fifteen years in a place too small for so many deaths. Today it seems the decoration of the mythical “A crime has been written”. National myth. History recovered this weekend the new york times as an example of a type of tourism which has been added in parallel to that of sun and beach. What seemed like a rural reckoning became, over time, a a national story about greed, secrets and institutional abandonment. the mountain, shared since 1896 by the town’s families under an ancestral agreement, had become the object of dispute between those who dreamed of a lucrative ski resort and those who wanted to preserve their peasant life. The conflict, fueled by smuggling interests and disputes over ownership, culminated in the judicial grant of the mountain to Sansa and, five months later, in her death. Then came the cultural phenomenon. From tragedy to true crime. The Catalan journalist Carles Porta, then a young reporter, was the one who turned the Tor crime into a media obsession. It started with a television report In 1997, he continued with a book in 2005, a podcast very successful in 2018 and a documentary series in 2023 that transformed the small town into the epicenter of Spanish “true crime.” Porta, fascinated by Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, found his own Holcomb in that Pyrenean valley and turned the story in an industry. Over the years, the public’s fascination with unsolved crimes attracted visitors from all over the country: curious people, mystery fans and hikers who wanted walk the stage of the murder, staying at Sansa’s old house or posing in the places where the police found evidence. Some even recreated the crime scene. with cables around the necka morbid parody that the neighbors watch with a mixture of bewilderment and resignation. Tor Municipality Crime tourism. The Times remembered that media notoriety brought money, but also disfigured life in Tor. In summer, the streets are filled of cars, the houses become scenery and the neighbors become involuntary characters in a story that never ends. In the Alins family hostel, at the foot of the mountain, phrases by Porta and bottles of liquor with quotes from his book hang, while the visitors ask relentlessly “who killed Sansa.” Merce Turallols, who was a girl when the body appeared, admits that fame has benefited the family business, but he confesses that the residents can no longer stand the circus: in the busiest months, you can’t even park and eccentric tourists tour the town disguised as victims. And more. “One arrived with a rope around his neck,” they remembered in the report. Porta himself, now producer of documentaries for Disney Regarding other cases, he recognizes that Tor’s has become his personal legacy, a phenomenon without end. The man assures have new clues (a possible hitman who lives in Miami) and the intention to close the case with a fiction series, but the people, who never saw justice or rest, feel that the journalist has exploded its tragedy to the limit. Town turned into a stage. Thus, going through Tor today is like going through a museum of rural crime: the local guide point out the places where the body was dragged, the house where a hippie committed suicide, the abandoned car of some smugglers, the meadows where neighbors charged tolls to those who crossed with goods from Andorra. Everything has become anecdote for visitors who seek excitement, while local people demand something as simple as mobile coverage or tranquility. Pilar Tomàs, who lives across the street from Sansa’s old house and was the one who found him dead, serves homemade food in her restaurant full of strangers. He appreciates the increase in clients, but would like a life without cameras nor curious. He joked in the media that if Porta has benefited so much from the case, he could donate at least enough for a telephone antenna. The rise of crime tourism. The call “dark tourism”sordid or thanatotourism has ceased to be a rarity and has consolidated itself as a global trend that turns tragedy into destiny. From the streets of Barcelona’s Raval, where the crimes of Enriqueta Martí either of the “Arropiero”even the towns devastated by the civil war like Belchitethe tourism industry has been able to capitalize on human fascination with death and evil, an interest as old as the shows of the Roman circus. According to the criminologist Vicente Garridothis attraction responds to the mixture of fear and curiosity in the face of the unknown, but today it takes the form of guided routes, theatrical visits and immersive experiences where the visitor seeks to understand (or feel) the echo of horror. New narratives to enhance it. Series and podcasts true crime have reinforced this phenomenon, generating a media aesthetic that romanticizes murder and transforms the victims and executioners into cultural characters. In Spain, theplaces like Torwith their story of unresolved deaths, symbolize that dilemma between memory and commodification: what for some is an economic opportunity and visibility, for others is the trivialization of a tragedy that is still alive. He crime tourism It grows, and with it the ethical question that accompanies it: how much knowledge and how much morbidity there is in looking head-on at the scenes of horror. Image | jqmj (Queralt) In Xataka | Sordid tourism: 17 places for those who travel looking for horror In Xataka | Italy’s tourism has a challenge worse than massification: mafia souvenirs. has started to ban them

build 2,000 apartments on top of other houses

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The Basque Country wants more public housing. Quite a bit more. And you already know how to get it without having to go through cumbersome bureaucratic procedures that take forever in the offices. The Department of Housing and Urban Agenda just announced which will triple its current supply of accommodation, expanding the height of 65 VPO buildings that already exist. That is, to the current 937 apartments (and 253 under construction) another 2,000 will be added that They will ‘sprout’ on the roofs. To achieve this, it will rely on construction with wood and modular parts. What has happened? That the Basque Country has found a formula to reinforce its public housing stock in an agile and fast way, without the need for complex administrative procedures that would lengthen the deadlines. The announcement was made this week by the Minister of Housing and Urban Agenda, Denis Itxaso, who explained that what the Basque Government is considering doing is building new apartments on the roofs of public buildings that are already built. To be more precise, the Executive has set its sights on 65 properties in which, it estimates, it will be able to build 2,000 accommodations. What exactly do you want to do? Gain endowment housingflats built on public land and which usually offer temporary accommodation to vulnerable people. Right now the Basque Executive has 937 in use and another 253 under construction. Its objective is to boost this supply with 2,000 new homes spread over the roofs of 65 public blocks already built. It is not just theory or a statement of intentions in the medium or long term. The Department of Housing and Urban Agenda is working on six pilot projects that will allow it to create between 210 and 250 new accommodations (about 10% of all those planned) for temporary and rotating rentals, housing designed especially for young people who have just emancipated themselves and are looking for employment. Of these actions, two are distributed in Vitoria-Gasteiz, another two in Bizkaia (more specifically in Bilbao) and the remaining two in Gipuzkoa. The measure has been adopted after technicians have confirmed that in “most” of the public rental buildings with flat roofs it is “viable” to add heights. “In most cases around two floors set back.” Why is it important? Because it opens a quick and agile way to expand the housing supply, a message that the Basque Government has been responsible for underlining. The formula, however, is designed for a very specific type of housing: public and for rotational rental. “These residential units, being considered residential equipment, do not increase urban buildability and, therefore, can be undertaken without the need to modify the general planning,” clarify. How is it possible? The project is contemplated in the Law on Urgent Measures for Housing, Land and Urban Planninga legal framework that is already being processed in the Basque Parliament. “The new rule provides that these lifts can be carried out through a detailed study, the processing of which is simpler and more agile than the approval of a special plan, as is currently required,” Itxaso clarified during his speech at the Regional Chamber, where he spoke of “a novel way.” “In short, it is an initiative that will allow us, without consuming land or modifying planning, to triple the number of public accommodations. Two thousand new accommodations for young people will be possible thanks to the reforms introduced by the Law on Urgent Measures for Housing, Land and Urban Planning”, the leader insistswho claims that the commitment “combines innovation, sustainability, social cohesion and effectiveness in the public response to the challenge of access to housing.” Do you know anything else? Yes. Beyond the regulatory framework, the figures and the selection of the first properties in the program, the Basque Government has explained how it plans to build its new endowment offer. It will opt for industrialized housing, a formula that the Executive has stood out already in the past. “We have opened a line of collaboration with the kabian projectlinked to social initiative cooperatives, which proposes a light and modular construction system in wood” explains Itxaso, who trusts that the use of industrialized techniques will allow “reducing costs, execution times and impact on the environment.” And beyond Euskadi? The Basque Country is not the only one that has looked at the roofs of buildings to gain housing. At least with a social focus. A few months ago the PSPV proposed in the Urban Planning Commission of the Valencia City Council to touch up the local planning so that the buildings could grow taller to add public housing. The plan did not prosper, but according to the calculations of the socialists it would allow the construction of more than 70,000 protected apartments. The height and the possibility of reinforcing the housing supply have also been raised in other large cities, such as Palm, Madrid or Barcelona, ​​where they have granted licenses to increase the buildability of existing blocks. Images | Yves Alaire (Unsplash) and Neil Martin (Unsplash) and Irekia In Xataka | A 40m2 “capsule” for 25,000 euros: the Chinese solution to housing that is beginning to gain followers in Spain

import “capsule houses” from China

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Spain needs affordable housing. A lot. Hundreds of thousands, according the estimates of the experts who have calculated the hole that the country would need to cover to get out of the housing crisis in which it has been immersed. That is why it is not surprising that solutions like the one that has just been launched a company of Pontevedra generate expectation inside and outside the sector. Their bet consists of neither more nor less than importing small “capsule houses” Chinese that can be installed in just a few months and are available for a few tens of thousands of euros. The question is… Will they help solve the problem? What has happened? That the Spanish real estate market adds a new residential solution. That is news in itself in a context marked by pronounced imbalance between supply and demand and escalation of prices. However, in this case there is another reason why the advertisement has aroused interest: what it offers Caslua Importa company located in O Grove (Galicia), is a solution that stands out for its costs and times. In fact they use a quite descriptive term. What they sell is neither more nor less than “capsule houses”. Capsule houses? Exact. To be more precise, “modular capsule houses”a term that gives a fairly precise idea of ​​what this Galician company offers. His online catalog It is divided into two categories: houses and modules. All prefabricated and with a range of sizes ranging from 5.8 meters long by 2.2 wide and 2.4 high (it even has smaller modules for offices) to structures of more than 11 meters and almost 40 m2 with a living room, bathroom, bedroom and terrace. Shapes, sizes and features change between some models and others, but philosophy is always the same: “Compact, efficient housing solutions ready to respond to the needs of housing, work or entrepreneurship.” In fact, those in charge usually emphasize two ideas: costs and times. The price range moves between 25,000 and 80,000 euros and the house would be ready in a few months. “In less than three you can have a fully assembled house to live in,” assures one of the founders of the firm, Antonio Luaña. “Manufacturing periods are around 30 days and then 60 days of transportation.” What are they like? It depends a lot on the model, but the company insist in that the capsules are modular, sustainable and can be adapted to be “self-sufficient”. After presenting its offer in media such as The Sixth, Antenna 3 either The Voice of Galiciathis week the signing showed to a hundred businessmen, politicians and neighbors a 38 m2 capsule home installed in O Grove and that includes a bathroom with a jacuzzi, a small kitchen with an oven and hob, a living room and a double bed. “It is around 85,000 euros. If you take away things from what it has, it can be around 73,000. Prices vary, but the structure is the same,” Luaña points out. Who makes capsule houses? The news shared by Caslúa assure that these are homes manufactured in China and that the Galician firm is dedicated to marketing them in Spain and Portugal. “When I went to China and saw them, I thought: How is this not in Spain? We have to take it,” Antonio tells. A quick search shows that in the Asian giant they work this type of small format residential solutions. Glamini includes different modelsalthough it is also dedicated to the manufacture of floating houses or cabins. Is it something new? Yes. And no. To start the concept of “capsule house” can be traced in foreign markets and in recent months there has been talk about them in other regions of Spain, such as Navarre. In China it is also possible to find several manufacturers. Even AliExpress they have launched its marketing. The undeniable thing is that the concept has aroused interest and joins a wave that goes beyond the “livable capsule” concept: that of the search for new forms of construction that make it possible to meet the high demand for housing. In recent years it has been gaining strength, for example prefabricated housingindustrialized and modular, which speeds up construction times without the owner having to give up configuring his residence. It is no longer just a matter of individuals betting on that formula. In recent months in Spain we have also seen businessmen resorting to that same solution to raise a multi-story hotel (it happened in Zaragoza) or even to institutions getting interested for her. Are they all advantages? The important thing is to know the characteristics of each option. And assess issues such as costs. For example, if we talk about a 38 m2 capsule that costs 73,000 euros, the square meter costs 1,900 euros, which (even assuming that this price includes the equipment) is noticeably above of the prices that are handled in some markets in Spain. Not to mention that to install a capsule it is necessary to have land that meets all urban planning requirements. The TVG network remember For example, even though they are modular houses, they cannot be installed on rustic land, unless they are linked to an agricultural operation. Images | Caslua Import In Xataka | Prefabricated houses have always been substandard housing. Now many governments are promoting them in the face of the crisis

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