Population growth has added pressure in major urban centers. Spain has gained more than 3 million residents since 2015, including 793,000 in Madrid, 556,000 in Barcelona and 279,000 in Valencia — all cities where housing costs have risen sharply.
Sánchez has not been blind to the crisis, calling housing the country’s “great constitutional challenge.” In 2023, he pledged to use “all state resources” to provide 184,000 public and affordable rental homes.
But when the government last provided a detailed accounting of the effort, in August 2024, it said only 14,000 homes had been “made available to citizens” through a social scheme. Some 60,000 other properties were reported to be in various stages of development.
The recent rollout of the government’s new housing portal, CASA47, was similarly underwhelming. It initially listed just 638 homes, none of which were in markets like Madrid or Barcelona, where the crisis is particularly acute.
“Sánchez’s Socialist Party has spent years claiming to want to tackle the housing market, but in practical terms it’s followed the same approach as right-wing parties,” Gil said. “They’ve avoided questioning the status quo or proposing structural limits or transformations.”
Even last week’s housing decrees — which included plans to curb speculative practices, extend eviction protections for vulnerable tenants until 2030 and automatically renew existing rental contracts, and which were ultimately rejected by lawmakers — contained only minimal measures unlikely to substantially address the crisis, Gil added.
