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Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

idealista.com

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Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#301

Post by rbanffy »

Homelessness is a problem. This looks like an interim and very imperfect solution.

If you have a residential property that's just closed and is not rented out and not used (even seasonally, such as a vacation home), it's not giving any worth towards the society it exists in. It's only fair that the owner pays higher taxes over it to help fund the creation of new housing for the existing demand.

I don't really think just occupying it is a great idea, but I do think it might force the owner to employ the property in a more socially responsible way.

Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#302

Post by mpeg »

_jplc wrote: post #292
matt-p wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, seriously, blaming a real-estate listing website for listing real-estate is absolutely insane. We all need to build more housing, that's it. That's the solution.

They do not only list real estate, they own a lot of it and speculate with it thanks to their advantageous position.

I think you're confusing things slightly – I don't think idealista owns any property. They are however owned by a private equity group that invests among other things directly in real estate, which is tbf extremely common in PE.

Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#303

Post by rolandog »

rudnevr wrote: post #289
pimterry wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not a small problem, there's like 12K cases per year last time I checked. https://maldita.es/malditateexplica/20221026/datos-okupacion... has the actual data (in Spanish): * 10-17k cases of occupation annually (rising until 2021, but down in 2022 and further down in 2023: https://www.cronista.com/espana/actualidad-es/adios-okupas-c... ) * Of those ~15k, 5% are actually occupation of somebody's residence (allan…

Thanks for the info. It's not that widespread, yes, but due to its gravity it's intoxicating and polarizing the public. From what I observe, the amount of cases could have dropped down because many people choose to not buy or somehow shield their property (sometimes just filling windows with bricks, for example, which looks weird). So I'm not sure it's because the okupas/govt/police somehow changed the direction, it'…

> Btw, bying an apartment in Barcelona costs you 10% tax already, that probably discourages most speculation (and the prices have been stagnant for a couple of years).

I'm not too sure those measures deter those who are filthy-rich. Would you agree that it can be viewed as the cost of doing business... and, worst — that it could price out small competitors (allowing for the formation of cartels of big landlords)?

Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#304

Post by hhf4433 »

lomase wrote: post #249
luluspa wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"the right to have a dwelling is on the top of private property so yes, it's quite difficult to evict people who entered the house in this scenario" So, there is an 'okupas problem'. You could have saved the whole first paragraph.

Is a feature, not a bug.

A commie becomes a raging capitalist the moment someone occupies their second residence. I know because it happened in my family.

Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#305

Post by ncruces »

Planktonne wrote: post #269
ncruces wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, and then the 80yo people living in a centenary house in a gentrified neighborhood suddenly get a 10x tax increase because the next door building got sold to be remodeled as a luxury condo, and drove property values through the roof. That's good, because if they can't pay, their house is up for remodelling too. /sarcasm

If the 80yo people are living in the house, then it isn't vacant.

That's not how property taxes work here.

Also, you need to figure out how you define vacant, and how to track it.

If I relocated for work, and use the house 3 months a year and every other month for a weekend, is it vacant? How do you tell?

Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#306

Post by pimterry »

e98cuenc wrote: post #299
pimterry wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not a small problem, there's like 12K cases per year last time I checked. https://maldita.es/malditateexplica/20221026/datos-okupacion... has the actual data (in Spanish): * 10-17k cases of occupation annually (rising until 2021, but down in 2022 and further down in 2023: https://www.cronista.com/espana/actualidad-es/adios-okupas-c... ) * Of those ~15k, 5% are actually occupation of somebody's residence (allan…

These stats don't account for the much more common case of people that start renting a house and stop paying the rent indefinitely because technically it doesn't fit the definition of "okupas." I've seen estimates of that number being as high as 1% of the people renting, making it ~30K extra people living on a house they don't own and are not paying for.

The only stats I can find are https://www.idealista.com/news/finanzas/economia/2023/03/03/... - that shows 30k people actually evicted from houses they were renting but stopped paying for in 2022.

Can't find any numbers on how many people are not paying and indefinitely staying in flats. While I'm sure it's a slow process, personally I'd be surprised if there's that many people in that situation long-term, since there's clearly laws and a working process to remove tenants in this case (30k evictions for non-payment in a year means forcing an eviction is clearly possible).

Idealista has some details on the process and how long it takes here: https://www.idealista.com/news/inmobiliario/vivienda/2022/10... and suggests that 7-8 months is typical (really interesting how effectively Idealista dominates as the source for info on all these topics, superb example of content marketing).

Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#307

Post by solids »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #297
pimterry wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not a small problem, there's like 12K cases per year last time I checked. https://maldita.es/malditateexplica/20221026/datos-okupacion... has the actual data (in Spanish): * 10-17k cases of occupation annually (rising until 2021, but down in 2022 and further down in 2023: https://www.cronista.com/espana/actualidad-es/adios-okupas-c... ) * Of those ~15k, 5% are actually occupation of somebody's residence (allan…

In the US, I knew someone who owned a second house in the same city that they had never lived in and planned to rent out in the future. When someone broke in and squatted there early in covid, they reacted as though the squatters were in the house they actually currently lived in - describing their fear and trauma in a way such that people who didn't know the story sometimes literally thought someone had broken into…

Squatting is a problem, period. Doesn’t matter if the house is empty or not.

Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#308

Post by pineaux »

dr__mario wrote: post #243
Zanni wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The data you have is the data you have but not necessarily the ground truth. See, for example, San Francisco shoplifting statistics.

I agree that it may not be 100% accurate, but probably correlated with the truth and directionally accurate. If you discard it, what do you have? Anecdotes? The media narratives?

If data is not representative it's just a metric. Its worse than anecdotes because an anecdote has a lot of information and nuance that can be obtained from it.

Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#309

Post by peter335 »

dr__mario wrote: post #194
peter335 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you make it financially risky to own a rental property you're also making it more risky and thus less profitable to buy and rent out apartments. This hurts both renters and the potential landlords. It would be much better to just increase property taxes.. Speaking as a Dane, this kind kind of economically illiterate leftist lawlessness is an important reason why Spain is poorer both poorer and has a worse welfare…

Ok, but first: is it financially risky right now to own properties? No, based on the data we have. Second: can renters be hurt even more? Are landlords the most vulnerable people right now? The situation is pretty awful right now, while at the same time there are people whose sole contribution to society is "owning flats". And I agree on increasing property taxes (any progressive taxes over capital would do).

I think these are understandable and well intended questions! But they also makes it seem like you're not very familiar with standard economic analysis. I would encourage you to read The Rent is Too Damn High by Yglesias which is by an american (leftist) who I think has a much better set of ideas for improving the lives of renters than "occupation friendly" housing regulations and other "zero sum" ideas. And yes, buying and administering rental properties is societally valueable just like running a bakery, restaurant or software consultancy is.

https://www.amazon.com/Rent-Too-Damn-High-Matters-ebook/dp/B...

Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#310

Post by foldr »

solids wrote: post #307
lazyasciiart wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, I knew someone who owned a second house in the same city that they had never lived in and planned to rent out in the future. When someone broke in and squatted there early in covid, they reacted as though the squatters were in the house they actually currently lived in - describing their fear and trauma in a way such that people who didn't know the story sometimes literally thought someone had broken into…

Squatting is a problem, period. Doesn’t matter if the house is empty or not.

I don't agree with squatting on the whole, but this distinction clearly does matter. If someone squats a property that you were planning to rent out then you lose the income that you could have gained thereby. That's not nearly as bad as losing access to the home you currently live in.
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