Can tourist apartments help solve the housing crisis?

One in four people in Spain considers housing to be one of the country's main problems, according to data from the latest survey by the Centre for Sociological Research (CIS). The percentage of the population concerned about access to housing under decent conditions has continued to increase in recent years. This has gone hand in hand with the ongoing rise in how much it costs to rent and buy property and how difficult it is to find affordable housing. There have been public protests in recent months to demand action, and the government and political parties have proposed different solutions to the crisis.

One of the most frequently cited causes of the problem is the rise in tourist rentals through platforms like Airbnb, which have operated in recent years with minimal regulation. In their latest study, published as open access in the journal Cities, Francesc González Reverté –from the Faculty of Economics and Business– and researcher Pablo Díaz Luque, from the New Perspectives on Tourism and Leisure (NOUTUR) research group –part of the management and governance research unit– at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC), navigate this tense relationship between tourism and housing to go one step further and study possible solutions to the problem. After analysing what motivates people who rent out tourist apartments, they have concluded that some of them might be willing to add their property to some form of social housing rental scheme.

The housing crisis in Spain

The problem of access to housing is not exclusively down to tourism; there are also structural causes. "It's the result of leaving access to housing almost exclusively in the hands of the private sector, the absence of solid social housing policies and the lack of land for residential use in urban areas with growing demand," explained Professor González Reverté. "In cities with a lot of tourism where the housing market is highly stressed, temporary tourist rentals exert extra pressure that ends up generating an increase in rental prices, a general increase in the price of housing and, in the most serious cases, it forces people to move because they can't access the property market as buyers or renters."

For decades, real estate policies in Spain have favoured ownership over renting and have limited the supply of social housing. According to data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), less than 20% of the country's housing stock is for rent and only 2.7% is social housing for rent. This figure is in stark contrast with the average for the European Union and the OECD – close to 8% – and, above all, with that of some countries with solid social housing policies, such as the Netherlands, Austria and Denmark, where social housing rentals represent more than 20% of the housing stock.

The result is that around 24% of the population is at risk of being excluded from the housing market in Spain and 4.6 million people live in homes in inadequate conditions, according to Housing Rights Watch. In this context, the emergence of temporary tourist rental platforms in the early 2000s has only exacerbated the problem. "In situations where access to housing is practically limited to the housing stock put on the market by private landlords, any additional actor that emerges and competes for housing in the market, such as tourist rental platforms, puts more pressure on the market and leads to situations of social inequality that require specific policies to reduce them, both from the point of view of tourism and urban planning," added Díaz Luque.

Motivating owners of tourist accommodation

The current housing problem does not have one single solution. For the UOC researchers, the proposals put forward to date, based on different visions and ideologies, are aimed at increasing the stock of social housing for rent, providing subsidies that aid access to housing offered by the private sector, the freeing up of land and the promotion of construction to increase supply, as well as the development of price control policies and tax deductions with greater guarantees for landlords. In their study, however, they propose a different alternative: motivating owners of tourist accommodation to offer their properties as social housing.

Financial incentives, such as increasing income, improving quality of life or gaining economic autonomy, are the main motivating factors among people who offer their homes through tourist rental platforms. However, as can be seen from the study by González Reverté and Díaz Luque, these coexist with other motivations, such as meeting new people, sharing experiences and lifestyles with visitors, or even combating loneliness. With this in mind, if the right conditions were in place, some landlords would be willing to abandon tourist rentals and offer their homes under some form of social housing rental.

"In general, willingness to offer the apartment as part of a social or regulated rental scheme is quite low among the group of property owners analysed. However, it is interesting to note that there are differences depending on their interests. People whose primary motivation is financial are more predisposed to switch to social housing rental if it continues to provide income through subsidized contracts. However, those who are motivated more by social factors – such as meeting people or sharing experiences – are somewhat more reluctant. However, they are willing to consider the option of social housing rental as long as it continues to provide them with benefits from social interaction," González Reverté said.

"The main conclusion of our study is that there is potential for these small owners with homes available for holiday letting to offer them in some form of social housing rental," added Díaz Luque. "A second conclusion is that social motivations never exist in isolation, but are always accompanied by financial factors. This brings us to the third conclusion: the social or altruistic awareness that property owners may have leads nowhere if it is not accompanied by policies to grant subsidies to convert their homes into social housing rentals."

"Our position is to reflect on finding a third way to deal with the problem of temporary housing, which requires negotiation between the different stakeholders rather than conflict and confrontation, if we are to make the most of a resource – housing – with high potential social value," concluded González Reverté. "Strong intervention policies are needed to transition from an ideal hypothetical scenario – the potential offered by property owners – to a tangible reality of converting housing into social rentals."

This research, framed within the UOC's research mission on Digital Transition and Sustainability, is part of the project Platform Economies and Responsible Urban Tourism (EPTUR), funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities. This project contributes to United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11: Make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.

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