Oh right, another right wing campaign, now in HN. We have enough if it in our TVs.
The real issue is empty houses, landlords and investment companies. Hopefully all of them get all speculative properties with okupas.
Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem
791–800 of 930 posts
Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem
#792Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not arguing that owning property in a tourist area requires work (unless you're paying a property manager to do it for you), but I could never imagine owning a vacation property to be squarely middle class. Upper-middle class, at the very least.
Building a small house or cabin in the woods with the help of friends and family is an upper-middle class thing for you, really?
small cabin in the woods is whatever
renting out property you own as a means of income is the upper middle class part.
Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem
#793Earlier quoted context omitted.
"They can easily take out a reverse mortgage to pay the property tax for the rest of their lives." Not everyone can do that easily. I would not know how that works and where are the downsides. I can learn it, sure, but for an 80 year old this would be real stress, having to figure unknown contracts out - and not getting cheated. Old people are a prime target for frauds for a reason.
The reality is that the same thing, in effect, happens if you stop paying property taxes. The tax builds up and then when the house is sold after passing the government collects the tax before the descendants receive the sale proceeds. This is why complaining about rising property taxes is almost never about the elderly people who actually live in the house. It's about their children that want to inherit the house wi…
> The reality is that …
People in different countries experience different realities.
Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem
#794I was considering buying a house in Spain to spend half a year in. Okupas was one of the reason I am not doing it. Instead I will be paying professional landlords to rent a house to live in for half a year. A real win for squatters' "ideology". If it continues the only people who own property will be professionals with private armies and organized security systems.
Great. I am glad to hear this. You forgot about people who live there all year round. You know, the ones who work, maintain services, offer food, have children who will keep everything working. Spain shouldn't be a big hotel, it is also the country of people who live all year round.
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Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem
#795Earlier quoted context omitted.
This problem will only grow because there's an increasingly large number of people in Spain unable to rent. At this very moment the profile of squatters is diverse, but with such large pockets of spaniards staying just above of the poverty line, many people will be forced between squatting or just become homeless. Just for reference, I live in a flat in a building from the 50s. Very poor insulation, 5º with no elevat…
You are in IT earning only 20K EUR per year? That is unbelievable! Why is the housing crisis happening? What changed? Did you have a population boom? > Not to mention all the "expats" and "digital nomads" that are willing to pay whatever the landlord says because they really really want to live here without thinking about the consequences, but that's another story. Hmmm. Do you have any stats on this matter? It seems…
Anecdote but I visited Barcelona just pre-Covid, one of my California friends met another California friend who had bought a condo for the bargain price of 500,000 for a vacation home (and they spent time and money to renovate it) right next to the most popular touristy section of town and only lived there about a month a year, and airbnb'ed it the rest of the time. There were already things on the news that I could follow about hostility to short term rentals to tourists in the city.
Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem
#796I was considering buying a house in Spain to spend half a year in. Okupas was one of the reason I am not doing it. Instead I will be paying professional landlords to rent a house to live in for half a year. A real win for squatters' "ideology". If it continues the only people who own property will be professionals with private armies and organized security systems.
Great. I am glad to hear this. You forgot about people who live there all year round. You know, the ones who work, maintain services, offer food, have children who will keep everything working. Spain shouldn't be a big hotel, it is also the country of people who live all year round.
Astonishing entitlement man. I was born in a dark country with shitty weather, bad air. Now when I made enough money to change it I want to spend a few months a year in the sun. People who live there are amazingly lucky to be born where the weather is good. Most of those desirable areas would be 3rd world country level if it wasn't for tourism as people there were unable to develop any kind of functioning economy and have to rely on others who spend their money there just because the weather is good during winter.
Spain has vast areas of unused buildable land, especially the South. It's not like land is a scarce resource there. Me buying a house won't cause someone unable to buy another one in the area. They can build it nearby if they want. The problems there are not caused by tourism as there is enough space for everyone and then some. Telling someone who has to actually work to be able to spend a few winter month in the sun that Spain should be for people born there while benefiting from EU (that means free movement of people among other things), trade and first of all tourism money is just the most arrogant entitled attitude I can imagine.
Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem
#797Earlier quoted context omitted.
> There's clearly a gap between imaginary noble okupas addressing housing crisis via occupation of unused bank property and reality of weed smoking anarchists and their collaborating deoccupying mafia harassing mostly not-so-rich middle class, who can't afford the security measures the rich can. I had a friend who bought a house that needed a lot of work. Before he could get started on the remodel, someone broke in t…
Living in Spain, I have friends from both ends of the spectrum: those speculating with houses and those who cannot afford to buy one. We can blame the okupas, calling them lazy if that suits you. But we are missing half the story if we don't consider the other end of the spectrum: people buying property purely for speculative investment. For example, consider the housing crisis in Majorca [1]. Since we have enough mo…
> We can blame the okupas, calling them lazy if that suits you. But we are missing half the story if we don't consider the other end of the spectrum:
I disagree. Two wrongs don’t make a right. You don’t have to put different people’s situations on to a spectrum and allow only one of them to be wrong and therefore anything the other person does is right.
It’s also disingenuous to pretend like all of the okupas are from desperate people who have no other choice, when there’s plenty of evidence that the okupas is being abused for extortion, crime, or just for fun.
Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem
#798This is pure madness. So you have 48 hours after squatting started to report it and potentially get a fast eviction (why is it not an automatic criminal case for breaking into the property is beyond me). But after 48 hours it seems like it becomes a nightmare. So if you are on a business trip for 3 days or visiting parents in a different city or vacationing for a few days and somebody enters your home, you are out of…
Not your home. Never. 2nd apartment/house, yes.
Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem
#799Earlier quoted context omitted.
It partially boils down to Spain having very little new construction. In a little eastern european country with 10 million people like Hungary there are roughly just as many new developments on the market as in a big country like Spain, with 40M population. Hungary: more than 2k new houses, and there are more than 5k new apartments to buy. https://ingatlan.com/lista/elado+haz+uj-epitesu In Madrid province, there are…
I live in Munich, for 6+ years now. I have never seen renting prices below 900€/month. Would you mind sharing your source of data?
Well this one goes for around half the price you mention so there are clearly some. https://www.immobilienscout24.de/expose/150937149?referrer=R...
Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem
#800Earlier quoted context omitted.
No. It doesn't matter whether it is a primary residence, secondary residence, or an investment property. It is the property of someone else. Without permission, opening the door or window and going into it is breaking and entering. And do not try to argue that breaking, entering, and squatting somehow reduces the housing shortage — the effect is the exact opposite. With insecure property access and rights, people wil…
You can upgrade from trespassing to B&E by gently pushing an unlocked door to gain access so I think the term is a little loaded here, considering you are trying to claim moral equivalence between 1) entering someones home for burglary or to actively displace the residents and 2) squatting a vacant and unused building
For 2), how do you tell the difference between a building that is truly abandoned, and one that has just been bought and the new owner is in the process of arranging to repair and upgrade it?
Unless you are going to setup surveillance and track every footprint, there is a LOT of process before the hammers start swinging.