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

If something is profitable, someone would do it in a free market. Even if selling houses is more profitable than renting, according to you renting is still more profitable than, for example, agriculture. How come there is not a flood of land owners selling their low profit land in Badajoz to buy houses in Madrid and Barcelona and double their income? How there are not hundreds of companies buying to rent, a safe and very profitable business, but there are hundreds of companies going bankrupt every year. For example, why start a car workshop when I could just buy three or four houses, rent them and live without working?

I'll tell you why: because renting is not a risk free and safe business, but a tight one. You can have renters that doesn't pay for a couple of years. Your tenants can cause damages to your property. Your property lose value if you don't invest in it. Lots of things can go south that wipe your ROI, and you can't do nothing to fix it. Sure, if you get a long term tenant that pays every 1st day of the month and takes good care of the house, it's a wonderful business, but that is not the norm.

> Everyone needs housing. It's not something you can simply opt out of.

Same thing I need food or clothing. And I have plenty of both, cheaply, on a wide variety and quality, because politicians don't meddle with them causing artificial shortages.

> there are better options than trusting the benevolence of every single landlord not to charge as much rent as they can get away with.

That's a free market. Every single one of us charges as much as we can get away with it. And pay as less as we can get away with it. If I don't have a higher wage is just because I'm selling my work to the best paying company. In turn, they are paying my salary because they couldn't find anyone that charges less than me for the same work.

> If it's a housing shortage, that's a supply problem. But according to other comments from people claiming to know the situation in Spain, there is no lack of housing supply (i.e. there are plenty of houses for sale and many empty houses for rent) so it seems to be a problem of pricing.

That makes no economical sense. There are cities (Madrid or Barcelona, surely others) where you can put a house for rent at any price, and it will get rented in hours. That's a supply problem! A problem of pricing would be hundreds of properties for rent at such prices that nobody rent them for months or years. There is a lack or supply _for rent_, and I don't care what other "informed" comments say unless they come with data.

> It's more profitable to sell (or rent out) a highly priced property even if it means you'll sit on it for a longer time, as long as you can afford the initial investment and maintenance

What? No, it's not. Each year without renting a house that you bought for, say, 300,000€ to rent for 1,000€/month is a loss of 12,000€ (4%). If you put that same 300,000€ in stocks or some kind of safe investment like public or private bonds, you would get at least 2% interest/dividend _and your invested money_ back. Instead you have inmovilized money that is producing zero (pre tax, depretiation and amortization). You should familiarize with this concept: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_cost

You basically are saying that I can buy stocks without dividend, because I'm just going to sell it at a higher prize in the future _guaranteed_. That might happen or not.

A tax on empty properties can't be passed onto renters.

It's an investment. Every investment has a risk. It's your responsibility to find ways to mitigate this risk, like renting to someone you know or having a modest price to someone who can pay afford it vastly, no to anyone that looks the cheapest rent.

That's why people sing contracts of X years, and asks for employment contracts and a minimum quantity of money in the bank. In this situations you can still get it wrong, but that's investing, it's always risky.

The underlying problem is that it violates the owner's property rights. Whether they rent or or leave unoccupied their property, even if it's scarce, is their business. And not letting the owner manage their property as they see fit causes all sorts of wider problems.

I'm assuming from reading your other comments you're not going to be sympathetic to this argument so let me give you two anecdotal incidents.

The first is about a woman who is 70 years old. She lives off a state pension which is supplemented by a small rental income from a three bedroom apartment she owns. The apartment is quite old, and needs refurbishment, so she can only generally rent it to students or non-professionals who pay a modest rent. After maintenance costs, property tax, and building management fees she doesn't get much but enough so she doesn't have to rely on her children.

One day, one of the tenants stopped paying rent. Rather than asking him to leave immediately she gave him some extra time to get the rent. Rather than do this, he decided he would do an occupation. So first he terrorized the other tenants so they left and then proceeded to occupy the entire apartment, including turning one bedroom into a gym. Police were called quite a few times but they said they couldn't do anything until they received a court order. So for a year and a half, this guy lived there rent free with water and electricity being paid for as well (you can cut off internet as it's not deemed essential).

When the court order finally came through the police didn't even bother showing up and it was the locksmith who chased the guy out. He hasn't faced any consequences and could continue to do this again and again. As for the owner, she had to take out loans (some with 20% interest) cover the costs this guy incurred. She, who is Spanish, will never rent out to Spanish people again.

The second is about a taxi driver in his late 40s. After a long period of saving he managed to save enough for a deposit to get a mortgage on a costal apartment that his family would use in the summers and rent the rest of the time. While he could have just listed it on Airbnb, he decided to rent it out to a woman with children on a long-term basis (non-summer months).

So she moves in and when he comes a few days later to collect the first month's rent he's informed that she won't be paying rent and because of the children it's going to be impossible to kick her out. He tries to negotiate with her over a few months, including talking to the town hall to get some some rent stipend, all to no avail. Eventually, he had to use desokupa services to get her out but not before this woman had caused significant property damage.

He also went into debt and his marriage almost failed because of the stress and financial strain. Once he finishes repairing all the damage (which he has to do himself as he can't afford to pay someone else) he will rent it out again but only through Airbnb to foreigners.

So this policy has ensured that honest people, renters and landlords, get punished by dishonest people who won't see any consequences either.

- Have you worked there with the average salary?

- Have you met the reality of working class people there?

- Have you stayed on a touristic city or on industrial areas?

- The real criminals are people from Spain, speculative funds and tourists from all over the world buying property here and not using it. They steal to everybody.

Then we can't hire people for our business because people can't find rent. We aren't paying low, the problem is the crazy rent market.

Banks own 80% of not used living places in Spain. Tell me who is the burglar. Real okupas only squat in this places, I know a lot, and surprise! Banks will get you out faster than anyone else but keep their property unused and rotting. Because they don't care about houses, they only care about land.

Spanish constitution states that housing is a human right. That's the difference. If someone enters to your home, people will bust them, if someone enters to your speculative bargain or summer whim, good luck, people want to live.