housing

Navarra’s plan to achieve more housing without building

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Housing prices in the state they are out of controlit is estimated that there is a residential deficit of about 700,000 homes and although there are those who believe that the problem would be solved by building more, others they are not so clear. So the Foral Community of Navarra has looked for an alternative “solidarity, sustainable and far from speculation compared to the traditional market”, as explained Begoña Alfarothird vice president and counselor of Housing, Youth and Migration Policies of the regional Government: a residential model of cooperation open to rehabilitating unique buildings. Towards collaborative housing. The Government of Navarra has authorized the sending to the Council of Navarra of the new draft of Regional Law on Collaborative Housingthat is, residential complexes whose ownership falls on a cooperative made up of members with the right to individual and long-term use and enjoyment of the home and its common spaces. That is, an intermediate regime between classic permanent private property and rental. This preliminary project contemplates three types of collaborative housing: affordable, non-profit, scale or need for prior registration in the Census. the one intended for seniors between 50 and 70 years old, with healthcare and socio-health spaces. In architectural heritage, rehabilitating unique buildings such as farmhouses, old mills, convents, railway stations, old barracks. Why is it important. Because your goal is offer a stable, supportive and non-speculative residential model compared to full ownership and traditional rental and the mechanisms that have promoted speculation and prevented or made it difficult for citizens to access housing. How has declared for eldiario.es economist Ignacio Ezquiaga, the Navarrese model of public housing policies should be considered “a model to follow” by other communities, which provides added value to this law as part of a comprehensive strategy and not as an isolated measure. This law is aimed at the segments of the population that need it most: people with few resources and/or the elderly. In the latter case, it constitutes a kind of alternative to the residence business model. In addition, it is a way to take advantage and give a second useful life to unique buildings. Context. In 2025, Navarra declared a stressed residential market area in 21 municipalities where rental prices have already fallen. Furthermore, it is the only autonomous community in which housing became cheaper last April by 3.9%. Of course, in the previous quarter it rose 10.5%, although it was the second community that increased the least. In addition, last year it led the construction of protected housing: builds twice as much per inhabitant as the Community of Madrid. Thus, more than 20% of the homes are protected: of the 870 homes completed in 2025, 449 had some type of protection. According to expertsamong the reasons that explain why Navarra is one of the few places with green shoots in the Spanish state is that the regional community has been committed to promoting public housing policies for some time. This Regional Law on Collaborative Housing does not come from nowhere: it has been going through public participation processes for months. Meanwhile, the regional community has been building a legal housing ecosystem, with a Registry of Large Homeowners or the first state law that regulates the rental of rooms. In detail. Collaborative housing in architectural heritage is understood to be “that which is promoted in unique buildings, whether or not they have some level of protection” and that are not susceptible to segregation into different housing units with the minimum conditions required by regulations on habitability. This rehabilitation will give rise to collaborative housing that guarantees that they have interior spaces of at least 30 useful square meters per living unit, that each of these units has a bedroom, kitchen and bathroom (unless there is a collective kitchen) and common spaces and facilities. Yes, but. At the moment this is a draft bill and the process for it to become law is long: the Council of Navarra needs to give its opinion, the Government must approve the final bill and it must go through Parliament, where it will be debated, voted on and changes will be introduced. On the other hand, the collaborative housing model is still a minority and slow to be deployed, so its impact on the short-term housing access crisis will foreseeably be limited compared to other potential measures such as rent control in stressed areas. In Xataka | If the question is how much does it cost to buy an island in Scotland, the answer is: like a flat in Madrid In Xataka | Spain has a housing deficit and a huge problem to solve it: a land jam that blocks millions of apartments Cover | José Luis Filpo Cabana and Thomas

Living for free in your parents’ house does not imply a housing donation

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He house price It is one of the main obstacles to the emancipation of young people in Spain. According to data According to the Spanish Youth Council, only 15.2% of young people can afford to live outside the family home. Of them, 57.9% do so in rented apartments and a third of these young people share a flat with other young people to be able to bear the expenses. In this context, it is not strange to find people over 30 years old living with their parents. However, according to have confirmed the Ministry of Finance to VerifyRTVEit is false that living for free in your parents’ home, or in “any property of your parents”, can be considered “as a donation”. The Treasury makes it clear: there is no donation. Both from the Ministry of Finance like from the union of Technicians of the Ministry of Finance (GESTHA) point out that there is no tax or legal change that penalizes children for residing in the family home. Sources from the Ministry of Finance confirmed to damn.es that “there have been no legal changes or changes in the orientation of administrative actions since the IRPF existed, nor has it ever been considered a fiscal risk.” Carlos Cruzado, president of the GESTHA union, explained to RTVE that no taxes or duties apply additional taxes for the simple fact that an adult shares a home with his or her parents. Donation is a change of ownership, not use. The reason why no charge is made is because, simply, when a child lives with his or her parents, no transfer of assets occurs. The consensual use that is made of it changes, not the ownership. This change of use between family members without financial compensation does not fit into any of the assumptions of the Inheritance and Donation Taxso neither parents nor children they must pay that tax. The professor of Financial Law Rosa María Galán pointed to damn.es that, in the case of children without economic resources to survive on their own, the article 142 of the Civil Code obliges parents to cover the support, housing, clothing and medical care of their children. There is no need to argue for free coexistence since providing it is a legal obligation. It even applies to second homes. This same logic applies even when parents and children do not live in the same property, but, for example, the parents live in the primary home, and the children in a second residence owned by the parents. According to Cruzado, the Treasury “understands that there may be a free transfer and does not allocate a return at market value.” In this case, the parents pay taxes the same as if the home were empty due to the imputation of real estate income in personal income tax, the same obligations that already exist. for having a second residence without regular use. In this case, the owner of the home must pay a tax of 2% of the cadastral value of the property, and in some cases is reduced to 1.1%. That is, what is taxed is the condition of second home ownership, not the fact that children live in the home or not. The transfer of use is not a donation: the distinction that changes everything. As and as explained José María Salcedo, managing partner of the tax firm Salcedo Tax Litigation to Idealistiche article 6.5 of the Personal Income Tax Law establishes a presumption of onerousness. This means that the Treasury tends to assume that any transfer has a price. However, this presumption admits evidence to the contrary, and the most common instrument to prove it is the bailment contracta document that formalizes the loan of the property without financial consideration and that, according to Cruzado, the Treasury “does not usually carry out these checks”, although it serves as a guarantee to justify “free of charge the right to use someone else’s property for a certain period of time.” A version of this article was published in February 2026 In Xataka | If the question is how much money can be donated to a child without declaring it to the Treasury, the law makes it clear: none Image | Pexels (Jakub Zerdzicki) In Trends | Confirmed: the Government determines that those who live in their parents’ home must pay taxes under certain conditions

“3D prefabricated houses can help alleviate the housing crisis, but they are not a structural solution”

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When the mayor of Madrid, José Luís Martínez-Almeida, presented his first promotion Built “in wood with prefabricated 3D modules” it defined its objective in a simple way: to make housing cheaper by “reducing deadlines.” The Municipal Housing and Land Company (EMVS) stated that they would promote the “construction of 800 homes developed with this system” in the community. The question is obvious: is this system really scalable and a solution to the housing crisis that Spain is experiencing? Tenders for multi-family buildings like the one in Madrid with industrialized systems are beginning to become common. “There are similar cases in Andalusia and the Valencian Community, with different industrialization systems, both in 2D and 3D, with wood, concrete or steel,” says Gerardo del Río, civil engineer, commercial director at the Guerola construction company, which has a 3D industrialized building factory. For Margarita de Luxán García de Diego, architect and emeritus professor of Graphic Expression at the Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM), this technique “is practically in an experimental phase.” still must move forward to improve and avoid limitations that condition it and “rigidize its use,” he clarifies. While industrial warehouses and single-family homes have been built with industrial systems for many years, high-rise construction such as hotels and educational centers is more recent, clarifies Gerardo del Río At the level of Spain there are very few buildings built and completed completely, with the enclosure and partitions with “3D printers in situ”. So far it has been done comprehensively in buildings up to two stories high. It also requires particular conditions so that the 3D printers can be placed and maneuvered. Regarding whether printed buildings can lower the final price, the architect points out that it is possible if the client is the developer, which is unusual. On the other hand, whether a builder or a real estate company sells them depends on the final price they want to set. Of course, they shorten construction times “as long as the project is very well resolved and decided in all its parts, including details and installations.” The challenge of making cheaper Carmen Díaz López, architect, doctor in Civil Engineering and professor and researcher at the Higher Technical School of Architecture of the University of Málaga, has the same opinion: “Industrialization makes processes cheaper, reduces uncertainty and improves efficiency, but that does not always automatically translate into a drop in the final price for those who buy or rent. The savings are clearer in time, management and cost control than in market price, unless there are measures that guide these solutions towards affordable housing.” In a town in Soria They have carried out a pilot construction test of seven industrialized homes. According to the mayor of Langa de Duero, “the homes are divided into modules, which means they can be practically assembled in three days.” Of course, the final shots would still be missing. While the Madrid project used wood, here the prefabricated elements are made of concrete. “They are different systems. The first consists of a multi-family building intended for an urban environment and the second is single-family homes for a rural environment,” explains Gerardo del Río. “It seems to me to be a good initiative in the face of the housing crisis, especially in areas as depopulated as Soria, and even more so being from Soria,” he adds. “These projects can help alleviate the housing crisis because they allow us to build faster and with greater cost control, something very relevant in a context of lack of supply,” highlights Carmen Díaz López. But the expert warns that “they are not a structural solution on their own: the housing crisis also has to do with land, regulation, financing and the functioning of the market. They are a useful tool, but they must be part of a broader housing policy.” “The ideal is for the initiative to be taken by the public sector, making land available to the private sector to build or construct housing directly, which can subsequently be managed by the administration itself or by the private sector through concession contracts,” says del Río. Margarita de Luxán highlights that industrialized homes They are not a panacea either. to housing prices and the lack of houses to live in. “The housing crisis and its solutions depend on many and very complex things, not only on construction techniques or materials,” he explains. For her, printed buildings are “a small part of the many approaches that must continue to advance.” In the current circumstances “they are marginal to define them as a generalized solution given their scale and conditions.” Render of the Loreto development, in Barajas, prefabricated in 3D. To address rural depopulation, projects like the one in Soria have, for Díaz López, potential if they are integrated into a territorial strategy. “Their main advantage is that they allow housing to be activated in places where today it is barely built, which can facilitate the arrival of new profiles: from young people to people who telework. But housing, by itself, does not fix the population: for there to be a real impact, services, connectivity, employment and a certain demographic stability are needed,” he highlights. “Its impact will depend on how it is scaled and, above all, if it is linked to a public strategy capable of converting that construction speed into truly accessible housing,” he adds. From the point of view of sustainability, the industrialization of housing has clear advantages for the professor at the University of Malaga: less waste, greater energy efficiency, better quality control and more precise execution. But the underlying debate is not only technical. “Industrialization can change how we build, but it does not solve on its own why housing remains inaccessible. The challenge is no longer so much technological as it is one of scale, governance and access model,” he concludes. In Xataka | Luxury homes in the US are selling like hotcakes and experts think they know why: AI In Xataka | In Vancouver they are building a … Read more

The world has been searching for the formula against the housing crisis for decades. There are those who believe that the answer is in Vancouver

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When you think about the residential market, price escalation and affordability of housing, more and more cities are looking up. The idea is very simple: build taller buildings and make more use of limited land, especially in the most sought-after neighborhoods. That philosophy is catching on, for example in Basque Countrywhere new apartments are proposed on buildings that already exist, or in Madrid, which aspire too to expedite procedures. In Vancouver (Canada) they have decided to go one step further and create a kind of ‘XL laboratory’ to answer a key question: Would the residential crisis be alleviated if we reduced bureaucracy and were more flexible with buildability? An impossible market. Living in Vancouver is not easy. Not at least if you don’t have a generous salary and you aspire to stay in a (more or less) well-located and (more or less) comfortable home. a study disclosed by Frontier Center shows that the British Columbia city deals with one of the least affordable markets on the planet. Canadian families who want to purchase a property need, on average, to invest the equivalent of 10.8 full years of gross income. And that for a ‘normal’ cost house. Globally, it is only surpassed by Hong Kong, Sydney, San Jose and Adelaide. The situation in Vancouver is actually worse than in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York or any other large conurbation in North America. The rental market does not offer much comfort either. According to Zillow Rentalsthe average income is close to 2,900 dollars and last year it was above 3,000. Against this backdrop, the authorities have set the goal of injecting into the market 83,000 new homes in the coming years. You will find more infographics at Statista And what is the reason? Beyond the imbalance between supply and demand or the arrival of immigrants with an investment mentality, a few days ago, in a column published in The New York TimesBinyamin Appelbaum mentioned another key factor: excessive bureaucratic rigidity and regulatory blockage, a problem that is not exclusive to Canada. “Cities have largely lost the power to approve projects. To prevent officials from acting against the public interest, we have taken away the power to act in its favor,” regrets Appelbaumveteran reporter The New York Times and specialist in economics and business. “We are so committed to justice that we have lost sight of the injustice of inaction.” “Restore affordability”. In his analysis, the expert recalls the construction limitations imposed in coastal cities like Vancouver in the 1960s, the effects of the 2008 financial crisis, the structural housing deficit (in 2023 it was estimated that Canada needed 3.5 million of extra homes by 2031 to “restore affordability”) and tension in the rental market. In the specific case of Vancouver, the geographical limitations of the city are added, constrained between mountains to the north, the ocean to the west and the border with the United States to the south. Also the characteristics of its urban planning, with a large weight of small properties. Houses, gardens… and skyrocketing prices. “The biggest problem is that Vancouver is a city of single-family homes. It has an imposing skyline in the center, but, if we see it from the air, the vast majority of the land is occupied by houses surrounded by grass,” comment Appelbaum. He is not the only one who highlights this peculiarity of the Canadian metropolis. In his chronicle he cites another expert, Alex Hemingway, senior economist at BC Policy Solutions, who questions this use of land in a city with residential m2 skyrocketing and rents through the roof. Appelbaum even cites specific cases in which apartment towers have given way to mansions, which further reduces the housing stock. A laboratory called Senakw. Despite this context, for a few years Vancouver has hosted a special project: in the heart of the city, near English Baythere is a wide strip of land 10.48 acres (just over four hectares) in which large apartment towers are being built. What’s more, the objective is to build one of the residential neighborhoods there with greater density from all over Canada: around 6,000 homes spread across 11 towers. His name is Sen̓áḵw and it is much more than theory or a plan drawn up on paper. The first building of the initial phase (which will encompass 1,049 homes spread over three towers of 27, 32 and 40 floors) is almost ready and the idea was for its first tenants to move in at the end of May. The Realist precise that the promoters want to finish the second block in the summer and the third before 2027. How is it possible? Very easy. Because Senakw is not just another real estate development. In fact (and this is the key) the 4.4 hectares it covers enjoy a special status that free it from the regulatory straitjacket that limits construction in other neighborhoods in Canada. The reason: that land does not depend on the Vancouver authorities, but on the Squamishan indigenous people who occupied the land long before the first Western settlers arrived. The land, located on the south bank of False Creek, was home to one of the 23 ancestral populations of Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Stélmexw, but in 1913 the natives residing there were evicted “by force”. Although the British initially recognized the area as a native reserve, the value of the land led the provincial government to pressure their families to leave in the early 20th century. Their offer was very simple: either accept the payments offered or risk be left with nothing. Then the Government burned their homes. That episode gave rise to a decades-long lawsuit that ended in 2003when justice returned 4.4 hectares to the Squamish Nation. “More than buildings”. A decade and a half after that historic ruling, in 2019, the Squamish Nation voted in favor of developing a residential project on the land and thus creating “a legacy” for the next generations of natives. The result is Senakw, an ambitious project of 6,000 homes spread … Read more

The wealth gap between young and old in Spain is skyrocketing and we have a suspect: housing

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Just look at the list of greatest fortunes in Spain of the last two years to realize that not only have their assets grown, but even among the wealthiest a gap has been created increasing among the rich and ultra-rich. This wealth gap is not an isolated phenomenon among the richest 1%, but rather has permeated to the entire population, leaving a worrying generational scar to which they have already put a figure: 340,000 euros. That is the difference in assets that today separates a person under 35 years old from someone who is between 65 and 74, according to a report which has just been published by the Santalucía Institute. A generation that starts from scratch. The data from the report maintain that the median wealth of those under 35 years of age in Spain has plummeted by 76.7% in the last 18 years. Not only do they accumulate fewer assets than their parents at the same age, but a growing proportion of young people “lack significant assets, which limits their financial stability and their ability to undertake long-term vital projects,” the report notes. The participation of young people under 35 years of age in the country’s total net wealth went from representing around 8.2% of the national wealth in 2002 to just 2.1% in 2022. For their part, those over 75 years of age, in the same period, went from representing 8.3% of total wealth to 18.3% in 2022. wealth transfer that has been redesigning the economic map of the country. This means that, although the net wealth of Spanish households has grown by 80.9% in the last two decades, this growth has mainly benefited those who already had a certain initial wealth, making the balance of wealth growth lean more towards the older (and more wealthy) population. The brick that only rose for a few. The report from the Santalucía Institute assures that the heritage in Spain rests almost completely in the homethus explaining the origin of the wealth growth of the oldest segment of the population. More than 80% of household assets are real estate. That has favored those who bought properties when prices were affordable. Those that came laterToday’s young people have found a market where buying a home is little less than a utopia. The property rate among those under 35 years of age has fallen from 35% in 2023 to 30% in 2025, continuing with a clear downward trend. Without home ownership and with skyrocketing rents At historic highs, the assets of young people have no basis on which to grow. Added to this is the job insecurity that characterizes this age group, which further reduces their savings capacity, closing a circle of which it is increasingly difficult to escape. The generation gap in figures. According to data from the ‘Family Financial Survey‘ conducted by the Bank of Spain, the gap between generations reached its historical maximum in 2022 and rose an additional 3% in 2024, the last year for which the entity’s data is collected. People between 65 and 74 years old accumulate on average more than 425,000 euros in deposits, investments and real estate assets, compared to the 83,000 euros that, on average, those under 35 have available. The distance between generations, estimated at 340,000 euros, has never been so great. Beyond the gap between generations, a report Prepared by FEDEA economists based on data from the Bank of Spain, it confirms that wealth inequality in Spain has grown constantly in the last two decades. The richest 1% concentrates around 21% of the country’s total wealth, while the poorest half barely reaches 7%. The Gini index, which measures this inequality, has risen from 0.57 in 2002 to 0.69 in 2022. Income also distances. The problem for the youngest is not only the accumulated wealth, but also in the income they receive every month. The median income of households between 65 and 74 years old already reaches 34,700 euros per year, this is 2,700 euros above what households headed by those under 35 years of age earn. The most striking thing is the speed at which this change has occurred since, in 2022, that difference was just 500 euros per year, but in just four years that difference has multiplied by five. Young households already have 8% less income than older households. Less income, less savings, less assets. The Santalucia Institute report, just as the OECD for yearswarns that this model points to structural inequality that will have direct implications for housing, the ability to save (and consume), and the redistribution of wealth. In Xataka | How wealth inequality has changed in the world since 2008, explained with a simple graph Image | Unsplash (Towfiqu barbhuiya, Brayn Ramos)

The periphery was always the refuge of those fleeing the housing prices of Madrid. That’s over

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With an untouchable market, exorbitant prices and draconian conditionsfor years many residents of Madrid who wanted to buy a house had no choice but to look outside the capital, in the metropolitan area. The logic was very simple: perhaps they couldn’t afford a flat in Castellana, but they could in Alcobendas, Coslada, Leganés or Móstoles, towns relatively well connected to Madrid and with more ‘friendly’ real estate markets. The problem is that these shelters are becoming fewer and fewer shelters. Where do I buy a house? There was a time when the answer to that question was obvious. One bought where one could, but usually the market offered enough margin so as not to have to leave the municipality in which one wanted to live due to roots, personal ties or work. In recent years that margin has been increasingly narrowing in cities like Madrid or Barcelona, ​​forcing buyers to consider your future beyondin metropolitan areas. There are even people who, taking advantage of teleworking and the improvement of public transport, decide to put their things in boxes and move dozens (or even hundreds) of kilometers away without giving up their jobs in Madrid. It is something that is already perceived, for example in Valladolidwhich has seen its registry grow thanks in part to Madrid residents who come there attracted by a more affordable residential market. There are around two hundred kilometers by car between both cities, but the AVE allows you to cover the journey in just over one hour. Click on the image to go to the tweet. Is it a real solution? The problem, like pointed out a few days ago José Manuel García Suárez in Their prices may still be lower in many cases than those paid on average in the capital, but that distance is being reduced little by little. What’s more, the more affordable their markets were initially, the faster they seem to be becoming more expensive, lowering their value as housing ‘havens’. What does that mean? Although housing in these locations is still cheaper than in Madrid, the m2 has begun to become more expensive than in the capital, which raises an uncomfortable question: Will they continue to be an alternative for those fleeing the capital? And if so, how long? The phenomenon is best understood with Idealista data. Right now on the real estate portal, the average residential m2 in Madrid is offered at 5,960 euros. Except for some luxury developments, there is no town in the province with such expensive housing. However, what Madrid no longer stands out for is the rate at which prices rise. According to Idealistahouses have become more expensive there by 12% in the last year compared to 16% in Pozuelo de Alcorcón, 19.8% in Majadahonda, 19.3% in Alcobendas, 16.2% in Rivas-Vaciamadrid or 20.8% in Getafe. Population Price (March 2026) Quarterly variation Annual variation Madrid €5,960/m2 +2.4% +12% Alcobendas €3,962/m2 +3.5% +19.3% San Sebastian de los reyes €3,861/m2 +3.4% +12.1% Three Songs €3,904/m2 +2.1% +16.9% Las Rozas €4,031/m2 +3.3% +19.2% Majadahonda €4,675/m2 +4.6% +19.8% Pozuelo de Alarcón €4,966/m2 +2.8% +16% Boadilla del Monte €3,924/m2 +2.6% +17.4% Mostoles €2,924/m2 +4.5% +20.6% Leganes €3,120/m2 +2.1% +20.2% Fuenlabrada €2,810/m2 +4.6% +19.6% Getafe €3,162/m2 +3.7% +20.8% Rivas-Vaciamadrid €3,241/m2 +3.4% +16.2% Coslada €3,121/m2 +1.7% +23.5% San Fernando de Henares €2,983/m2 +1% +20.9% But it was something to be expected, right? More or less. That housing is becoming more expensive at a faster rate in Fuenlabrada than in Madrid capital is in a certain way logical. The higher a value is, the more difficult it is for it to register large percentage increases. In other words: that in Madrid housing has risen by 12% and in Coslada by 23.5% does not have to mean, in net terms, that the latter requires disbursing a greater amount of money. Making the above clear, data such as those published by Idealista show that the real estate market is overheating more quickly in the periphery than in the metropolis. And that is relevant because it paints a scenario in which the metropolitan area stops being the “plan B” of those looking for affordable housing. The phenomenon also It is not exclusive to Madrid. Something similar is happening on the outskirts of Barcelona, ​​which has seen how housing in Badalona, ​​Santa Coloma or Cornella de Llobregat becomes more expensive at a faster rate than in Barcelona. What can we expect? The outlook is complicated for several reasons. Firstly, because the Madrid or Barcelona market does not give any signs that it is cooling, not at least as far as prices are concerned. Also in Spain they continue to be created homes faster than new homes are being built, suggesting that the deficit that stresses the market will not be corrected in the short term. The question is how that will affect large metropolitan areas. Teleworking and public transportation mean that there are more and more people willing to live far from their jobs (the number of those who live and work in different provinces has increased by 30% since 2019), but cases such as those in Madrid or Barcelona show that price increases do not take long to spread to new markets, especially targeting the most affordable ones. Image | Joshua Aguilar (Unsplash) In Xataka | In its crazy rise in housing prices, Madrid has just broken a barrier: that of the most expensive apartment in its history

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

If the solution to the housing crisis in Spain is “building taller buildings”, Alcalá de Henares has taken it seriously

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If you want to solve your residential deficit and stop the upward spiral of prices, Madrid needs housing. tens of thousands of housing, if we trust the calculations carried out by the real estate sector. With that backdrop in the capital (as in other points of the country) has opened a debate: Should we look up? That is to say, if houses are needed and the buildable land is what it is, has the time come? replant the height of buildings, both in established neighborhoods and in new real estate developments? In Alcalá there are those who believe so. In fact, the birthplace of Cervantes has started the countdown to provide one of the tallest skyscrapers in the community, a tower of almost 30 levels. What has happened? That Alcalá de Henares seems to have unblocked an ambitious real estate project that it had been years on the table: a tower that, once completed, will become one of the tallest residential buildings in the Community of Madrid. The news has revealed it the company Ten Brinke, which has partnered with Invesco Real Estate to carry out the operation. Although not many details of the project have been revealed, it is known that the building will be around 30 floors and will exceed the 300 homeswhich will redefine the skyline of the city and will surpass La Garena, an office tower 17 floors and 71.7 m which now dominates the town’s skyline. There are those who now slide that the new construction will be the first residential skyscraper in Alcalá de Henares and one of the few in the Community of Madrid that exceeds 25 heights. What do we know about the project? In the statement In which he announces the “closing of the operation”, Ten Brinke slips a couple of clues about the future property: it will be residential, it will exceed 300 homes and will have 28 levels in total, a sum of 25 floors in height, the ground floor and two underground levels. Furthermore, Ten Brike clarifies that the developers will bet on a “product mix” formula, including family housing, premium apartments and “spaces aimed at modern living.” Regarding deadlines, he states that the works will start “in the coming weeks”, without outlining a delivery schedule. Has anything else transpired? In recent days the Madrid press has pointed out various details to adults, such as that the objective is for the homes to be used for rental marketthat the tower will be around the 80 meters high and that will be located in the Francisco Anton streetnext to the new GAL neighborhood. The SER chain assures that the project has actually been licensed since 2021. A few years ago was announced an ambitious residential development, the Tower (or garden) Cervantes, with buildings 25 stories high. The Idealista portal even reached advertise The apartments, which were offered from 256,000 euros and also stood out for their common areas, with more than 15,000 m2 of gardens and recreational areas that included an outdoor pool. At that time (2024) the idea was to deliver the first keys towards the summer of 2027. Why is it important? Beyond the relevance of the project and its impact on the Complutense skyline, the tower is important because it will inject 300 new homes in a town that has seen how rents and the price per m2 have become more expensive in recent years, in line with the rest of Madrid. According to the Idealista portal, in February the m2 It cost €2,74419.3% more than in the same month last year. Regarding the rent, the m2 It was rented for €13.7which represents an annual increase (February 2025) of about 12%. The municipality has also seen its registry grow in recent years, going from 193,751 registered in 2018 to more than 203,200 residents, according to the tables of the INE. Images | Ten Brinke In Xataka | Madrid is discovering that there is something more controversial than the ‘tazo’ of garbage: where the hell to put a canton of garbage

Tokyo is one of the few cities in the world that has managed to maintain housing prices. His secret: build

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“If you can’t solve a problem, make it bigger.” This oft-repeated maxim (and mistakenly coined for Dwight D. Eisenhower) can be good advice when it comes to housing: Expanding the scope of a problem can make new solutions possible. Japan is the world’s best example of an advanced industrial democracy with abundance of affordable housing with low carbon emissions. To build. The key to Japan’s success is its unusual degree of national control over zoning and building rules. Centralized authority trumps local housing obstructionism. Tokyo builds more housing in a year than all of California or all of England, which have 3 or 4 times its population. In the largest megalopolis in the world, the way Rents stay low in the long term is to build. National decisions. The political scientist Grant McConnell wrote on the classic articulation of the view that the national government is more likely to solve difficult problems than state or local governments. Small can be beautiful, the reasoning goes, but it can also be provincial, backward and oligarchic. This logic fits well with the housing issue: Putting much more at stake, all at once, in one big fight, rather than piece by piece in hundreds of separate local fights, could disrupt the housing war. More homes around the world. The world has provided some examples of this. Japan has had extraordinary success in housing construction. He has long been a leader and expanded his leadership even further in recent years. Germany, Austria and Switzerland have always had good records, behind Japan but still performing well. France has stepped up, at least in Paris. These countries generally employ rule-based (or “by right”) building permit systems: if your plans check the stipulated boxes, building authorities have no choice but to sign. The Anglo-Saxons. On the other hand, English-speaking countries, including Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States and New Zealand, are lagging behind. Their permit systems are often more discretionarygiving local officials the power to approve or reject buildings at will. In many parts of these countries, especially their large cities, housing is expensive because it is scarce. For now, the Anglosphere suffers the worst housing shortages and prices. The Japanese case. The Asian country is the best example of the maxim of “magnifying” problems. Japan’s national government controls the use of land and buildings to a greater extent than national authorities in other countries. This control has grown in recent decades, even as other nations have gone into lockdown. The number of homes built per year in industrial democracies has fallen by more than 60% since 1970, according to The Economist. Meanwhile, housing construction in Japan has remained solid at all timesbroad public interest in abundant housing has triumphed over obstructionism. What did they do? To boost construction and lower prices, Japan redoubled efforts to allow more housing construction. He resorted, in particular, to administrative changes in building codes. “To help the economy recover from the bubble, the country eased the regulation of urban development,” explained Hiro Ichikawa, a construction development advisor. in the Financial Times. “If it hadn’t been for the bubble, Tokyo would be in the same situation as London or San Francisco.” Build, build and build. The results, in abundant housing, low prices and low carbon urban formswalkable and transit-focused, are notable. The city of Tokyo had 13.5 million residents in 2018. But the city built 145,000 new residences that year. Tokyo’s achievement was particularly surprising considering that the prefecture has very little vacant land, so almost all of those 145,000 homes were located in an existing neighborhood. The astonishing pace of housing construction in the capital has continued for years. Tokyo routinely builds more new homes than all of California (which has three times its population) or, in some years, all of England (which has four times its population). It has increased housing construction by 30% since the turn of the century, even as its population peaked and began to decline in 2007. disposable houses. It is true that Japan demolishes houses much earlier than other industrialized countriesso a large portion of their housing starts are replacement housing. But the much criticized Japanese culture of “disposable houses” It is actually one of the secrets of its success. Japan’s rigorous and up-to-date earthquake safety laws, plus a cultural attachment to new homes, mean that tiny houses in Japan often depreciate completely in just 30 years and are replaced soon after. Because housing is renovated quickly, the country has a much better chance of installing larger buildings. In parts of the US, where buildings typically have an economic life of 100 years, you only have one chance per century to replace a house with an apartment building. In Japan, you get three. More housing. The prefecture has tripled its stocks of housing in the last 50 years and has expanded the number of residences in the city by about 2% annually since 2000. In fact, its overall housing unit growth rate was three times faster than London or New York in the 2010s. Among the 14 megacities around the world, only Singapore and Seoul surpassed Tokyo in the pace of overall housing growth. Thanks to the Japanese program to govern housing, Tokyo Prefecture and the world’s largest metropolis have completely avoided residential closures. Japan seems to have learned the maxim attributed to Eisenhower: if you can’t solve a problem, make it bigger. In Xataka | In its crazy rise in housing prices, Madrid has just broken a barrier: that of the most expensive apartment in its history In Xataka | Tenants and owners are not the same type of Spaniards: some pay €400 more than others for the same home Image | Yu Kato

The Government wants new buildings to include spaces for bicycles. There are those who warn that it will make housing even more expensive.

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Europe wants its buildings to be increasingly ‘green’, an endeavor that Spain seems willing to take a step further. The Government has reviewed the Technical Building Code (CTE) to apply certain changes that prioritize precisely that: sustainability. If it goes ahead, the new CTE will pay even more attention to the energy efficiency of buildings, their polluting footprint and even proposes using buildings as a lever to promote sustainable mobility. With this last objective, a demand that has generated some controversy: that the properties must include a minimum of places for bikes. From the sector they already warn that the new requirements costs will skyrocket of construction at the worst time, with the price of housing shot. What has happened? That the Government has launched the institutional machinery to modify the CTEthe framework standard that details the basic requirements that buildings must meet. It is not a capricious change. In reality, it is an update that seeks to adapt the code to the guidelines set by Brussels, such as the Directive 2024/1275 of the European Parliament and Council. The Ministry of Housing and Urban Agenda is already advancing that it will be one of the “most ambitious” modifications since the CTE was implemented. What is the objective? The change seeks to give more weight to certain objectives set from Brussels, such as the “energy efficiency of buildings”“environmental sustainability” or control of the polluting footprint during the life cycle of buildings. One of the novelties in fact is the regulation of what European regulations call “global warming potential of buildings”, a way of quantifying the emissions of a property. With the current CTE, the Government also wants to review the anti-fire regulations (the change comes after the tragic fire of Valencia in 2024, which left several deceased) and use real estate as a lever for “sustainable mobility”. After all, buildings also usually include parking spaces. Housing has proposed that these spaces be planned from the beginning to make it easier for those who travel with electric cars, scooters or bikes. And how will he do it? Including a series of guidelines in the CTE. At the moment we have your draftbut it is clear: “Buildings with parking spaces for cars will have a minimum infrastructure that enables the charging of electric vehicles and will have a minimum provision of parking for bicycles.” The text does not stop there and specifies issues such as the minimum number or even the size of the spaces reserved for bikes. What does it say exactly? “Parking spaces for bicycles will have a minimum dimension of 2.00 x 0.4 m. From 20 spaces, 5% of the spaces will have a dimension of 2.5 x 0.9 m for bicycles with dimensions larger than standard, such as long bikes or for people with disabilities. In uses other than private residential, parking spaces will be marked in accordance with the highway code,” collect the text. The draft clarifies that these parking spaces must “preferably” be in the parking lot or the access floor and that, at a minimum, residential properties must incorporate two bicycle spaces for each home. The CTE clarifies in any case that town councils can regulate to reduce this general requirement. Things are somewhat different in properties that are not intended for housing. In them, bicycle parking spaces must cover “5% of the building’s total user capacity.” At what point is the change? What we have at the moment is the draft royal decree that modifies the CTE, a document that was kept on public display until December so that citizens, builders or any other group that wished could raise their “observations.” Once this mandatory requirement has been dispatched, the CTE must now continue with its processing, including, if the Government so deems it, the proposed corrections. If we talk about the guidelines on bicycle spaces (and in general the “sustainable mobility” chapter of the project) it is important to take into account a nuance: the changes are proposed for newly built buildings. The project It also contemplates that the guidelines be applied to existing properties, but only when they have undergone substantial renovations, extensions or changes of use. Has it generated controversy? It has certainly generated debate. And the reason is simple: there are those who already warn that, in general, the different changes applied to the CTE will make construction more expensive at the worst moment, in the midst of the housing crisis and with prices (especially rents) skyrocketing. Recently the College of Surveyors of Madrid did the math and estimated that in general the new CTE requirements (not only those related to bicycle spaces) will translate into thousands of euros of extra cost. How many? In a first phase, the new houses will become 12,000 euros more expensive. And that will only be at the beginning. When they are fully implemented, the extra cost will be even greater and will reach 18,000, making it even more complicated. the “cost of entry” to the homes. Images | Alexander Van Steenberge (Unsplash) and Liona Toussaint (Unsplash) In Xataka | Communities and neighbors have been wondering all their lives whether bikes can be parked in the hallways. The law leaves little doubt

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