Spain is latest battleground for global affordable housing
THE effort by Spain's Socialist government to control apartment rents in one of the developed world's more buoyant real estate markets is off to a rocky start. In May, two months after imposing a battery of rent-suppression measures for new leases, rents rose at a 7.5 per cent annual pace, according to property website Idealista.com, which supplies data to Spain's central bank. That was an acceleration from 6.6 per cent in March when the measures were enacted. In Spain, the new rules limit annual rent increases for five years to the inflation rate, currently 0.8 per cent. That's not happy news for landlords, although after that period is over they can raise, or lower, them as they wish, in a new contract. The prices quoted by Idealista reflect what landlords are asking for in new contracts. From Berlin to New York, governments are wrestling with how to keep tenants from being priced out of their neighbourhoods.
Tags : INTERNATIONAL