118 CHA

At this point in the housing crisis it has already been quite clear that the problem lies in a growing demand and a diminishing supply. There are not enough houses for all the people who want to buy and rent, a mismatch that has fired prices for historical maximums. Paradoxically, empty housing shows a worrying trend: 3% of the owners in Spain claim to have an empty housing. In addition, of the total uninhabited houses, 4 out of 10 (38%) have empty more than five years, which represents a three percentage increase in one yearaccording to Fotocasa data. If these properties were left to the market, mainly from the rental, a priori could help close the gap between supply and demand, but their impact would be very limited, the real estate portal recognizes.

“It is essential that the empty housing park reactivates and can be incorporated into the market, Either for sale or for rent, because we have a ratio of housing per citizen much lower than that of Europe, “says María Matos, director of Studies and spokesman for Fotocasa. However, most of these empty homes are not in optimal conditions to be inhabited: they present bad conservation states or require important reforms that, in many cases, cannot be assumed by their owners. In addition, many are not located in large cities or in their areas Metropolitanas, where access to housing is more critical, but are located in rural areas or in locations with little grip on housing.

Despite this, it should be noted that SpainAndalusia is the community where the percentage of empty housing owners is higher, reaching 2.5% of the total, followed by Madrid (2.1%) -A of the most tensioning regions- and the Valencian Community (2%). Instead, Catalonia, another of the regions with the greatest housing problem, is autonomy with a lower percentage of owners who declare to have an unused property (1.7%).

Profile of the owner of an empty home

The owner’s profile with an empty property is mostly men (53%) with an average age of 53 years (in fact, more than half are located in the most advanced age strip, between 55 and 75 years). The owners of medium-high classes also predominate. In addition, a third of empty housing owners live with a couple and children, while a quarter live alone and 23% reside as a couple, but without children. 69% live in a property of their property and three quarters of respondents have two or more homes in possession. Specifically, Among those who only have a house, just 1% have an empty floor. However, the figure rises to 6% among the owners of two homes and shoots up to 26% among those who have three or more homes and admit to having some empty property with three or more.