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Barcelona will eliminate tourist apartments

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Re: Barcelona will eliminate tourist apartments

#21

Post by hombre_fatal »

othello wrote: post #8
hombre_fatal wrote: post #2

It's a short term authoritarian bandaid that doesn't even help that many people, all the while fostering resentment and opening up increasingly authoritarian measures in the future. We should go the asian route of increasing density and size. It's not like Barcelona is fully developed border to border.

Barcelona has a 16,000 people per square km density - that’s already one of the highest in Europe. https://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities/barcelona-pop... .

It's 67th in the world and less dense than 11 French cities, though not a great comparison because most of those are small cities. But just because it's in the top 100 doesn't mean it's maxed out. It still has 5000/sqkm fewer people than Paris.

Nor does it mean this trade off for a measly 10,000 flats is worth it in such a large city.

Re: Barcelona will eliminate tourist apartments

#22

Post by [deleted] »

lucasfcosta wrote: post #5

Honest question: does this work? It seems to me that this change will have unintended effects and will fail to produce the desired results. AFAIK rent in NYC hasn’t gone down since they changed their short-term rental regulations. I might be naive, but I’d assume that the solution is to build more housing to increase the supply instead of curbing the demand? Genuinely curious about others’ takes on this.

[deleted]

Re: Barcelona will eliminate tourist apartments

#24

Post by CPLX »

lucasfcosta wrote: post #5

Honest question: does this work? It seems to me that this change will have unintended effects and will fail to produce the desired results. AFAIK rent in NYC hasn’t gone down since they changed their short-term rental regulations. I might be naive, but I’d assume that the solution is to build more housing to increase the supply instead of curbing the demand? Genuinely curious about others’ takes on this.

Why would rent go down? There's a lot of factors at work. Since the default is rent spiraling upwards, a decrease in that rate would be a success by any standards.

Re: Barcelona will eliminate tourist apartments

#25

Post by SeanAnderson »

Barcelona has a population of ~1.7 million. The metro area surrounding is ~5.7 million. The metro area grew by ~100k in the past four years.

They are freeing up ~10,000 houses over the next four years with this legislation. Barcelona built ~15,000 new properties between 2011 and 2020.

The math don't math. It's a drop in the bucket. The entire impact of AirBnB + all housing built in the last decade does not offset the last half decade of population growth.

Housing must be built more quickly than your population is growing to keep prices down, or you must concede that you live in a nice area where people wealthier than you wish to be and that those people are going to gentrify the area and displace locals. It's an unpleasant reality of the world.

EDIT: some good feedback in the responses. thanks! I'm being a bit dramatic by saying it's just a drop in the bucket, this action frees up more housing than was built over the same timespan, and it's possible to have effects on pricing greater than what would be inferred by the raw numbers because economics is tricky. cheers.

Re: Barcelona will eliminate tourist apartments

#26

Post by popcalc »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #23
deutschepost wrote: post #3

Good. Tourists should sleep in hotels and locals should sleep in their flats. Platforms like AirBnB only put oil in the fire when it comes to housing crises.

Hotels suck. I want a hotel with no staff. Thats airbnb

[deleted]

Re: Barcelona will eliminate tourist apartments

#27

Post by enraged_camel »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #23
deutschepost wrote: post #3

Good. Tourists should sleep in hotels and locals should sleep in their flats. Platforms like AirBnB only put oil in the fire when it comes to housing crises.

Hotels suck. I want a hotel with no staff. Thats airbnb

Well, you can always sleep in a tent!

Re: Barcelona will eliminate tourist apartments

#28

Post by utensil4778 »

popcalc wrote: post #10
deutschepost wrote: post #3

Good. Tourists should sleep in hotels and locals should sleep in their flats. Platforms like AirBnB only put oil in the fire when it comes to housing crises.

Alternatively, the population practicing birth control could solve the crisis. Don't have kids if you don't own at least one home :)

"Poor people shouldn't be allowed to reproduce, that will fix our problems"

Re: Barcelona will eliminate tourist apartments

#29

Post by lbwtaylor »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #2

It's a short term authoritarian bandaid that doesn't even help that many people, all the while fostering resentment and opening up increasingly authoritarian measures in the future. We should go the asian route of increasing density and size. It's not like Barcelona is fully developed border to border.

It's just basic urban planning and zoning. You can't run a factory in your apartment and you can't run a hotel. Plenty of cities restrict where hotels can operate. This is nothing special and certainly not authoritarian. These measures are quite popular because, shocking, people in residential neighborhoods like have real neighbors rather than hotel guests.

Re: Barcelona will eliminate tourist apartments

#30

Post by tomhoward »

lucasfcosta wrote: post #5

Honest question: does this work? It seems to me that this change will have unintended effects and will fail to produce the desired results. AFAIK rent in NYC hasn’t gone down since they changed their short-term rental regulations. I might be naive, but I’d assume that the solution is to build more housing to increase the supply instead of curbing the demand? Genuinely curious about others’ takes on this.

In Melbourne/Victoria, Australia, from 2025 they’re applying a government levy on vacation rentals and using it to fund new public and affordable housing projects [1].

They’ve also added a land tax on second homes to disincentivize hoarding of property (though this has had some perverse effects, notably, reducing long-term rental stock and moving into the owner-occupier segment).

It’s too early to evaluate outcomes, but this general approach seems more sensible than an outright ban. Tax the activity to reduce it somewhat whilst generating state revenue to fund programs to mitigate the negative effects.

[1] https://amp.abc.net.au/article/102878180

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