"If that ain't you, then let me know, 'cause training season's over". The message that Dua Lipa sings in her 2024 hit, Training Season, is this: enough of tests, it's time to look for definitive solutions. And perhaps this musical metaphor also serves to describe the moment that housing is going through in Spain. We have been rehearsing formulas for years, modifying regulations, and applying partial measures, while the access problem becomes increasingly complex. The time has come to leave experiments behind and find a real exit to the housing maze.
The data paints a market strained by a demand that does not find sufficient supply. In the first half of 2026, 25% of Spaniards have taken some action to demand housing, two points more than a year earlier. At the same time, 16% have searched for housing without being able to close a deal, compared to 14% in 2025, while the supply stagnates and barely reaches 6% of individuals. These are data from Fotocasa Research that show to what extent the need for housing is clashing with insufficient supply. What can we do? There is no single measure capable of solving a problem of this magnitude. But we can identify five essential recipes.
1. A state pact for the next 30 years
The first is probably the most difficult (politically) and, at the same time, the most necessary: a state pact for housing. Housing cannot depend on changes in the political cycle. Building, rehabilitating, developing land, or expanding the public stock takes years. That is why we need a commitment from all political forces and all administrations with a horizon of at least 30 years. The real estate market needs stability because supply, demand, and financing are closely related, and all of them are influenced by a fourth factor: regulation.
Therefore, a state pact would allow for the establishment of quantifiable objectives, timelines, and evaluation mechanisms that would survive legislative terms. Because a housing policy that changes every four years takes us nowhere and can hardly resolve a deficit that accumulates over decades. Enough of experiments.
2. More public investment and more available land
The second recipe is to increase public investment and make more developable land available to the market. If there are more and more people looking for housing and we do not sufficiently increase the number of available properties, scarcity will be generated and the pressure will continue to be transferred to prices. It is necessary to facilitate the transformation of land and reduce the costs associated with its development, based on legislation that offers greater flexibility and acceleration of urbanization and construction processes.
We also need more public resources, but, above all, that the already available ones are executed. Of the 3.6 billion euros planned for housing policies this year, the Government has barely invested 66 million, which means executing only 1.8% of the available funds. It is not only about building public housing, but about developing a stable budgetary policy that allows for land acquisition, promoting new developments, rehabilitating the residential stock, and mobilizing private housing towards residential uses. And, of course, it is difficult to understand the renunciation of loans from the Next Generation funds, as it means letting go of 4 billion euros that could be allocated to expanding the social housing stock.
3. Public and private must work together
Public-private collaboration has been demanded by land, sea, and air. The Administration can regulate to facilitate land, financing, and incentives, while the private sector provides investment, promotion, construction, and management capacity. If we want to quickly increase supply, we need to take advantage of all available capacities. There are multiple models of public-private collaboration, such as the transfer of public land to private developers through long-term concessions to develop affordable rental housing.
And this alliance must necessarily include rehabilitation. Spain has a residential park that needs to be updated, and part of the housing does not reach the market precisely because it requires investments that are not always feasible for its owners. Fiscal incentives for rehabilitation must be recovered to improve buildings, increase their energy efficiency, and enhance the value of homes that are currently uninhabitable. Building more homes and recovering those that already exist must be part of the same strategy. The magnitude of the challenge forces us to look at the numbers. At Fotocasa, we estimate that 1.8 million homes would be necessary to balance the park.
4. Legal security and regulatory stability
The fourth recipe is to generate trust. We cannot ask owners to expand the rental offer while they perceive that the rules of the game are constantly changing and working against them. Legal security is not an exclusive demand of investors; it is a necessary condition for many individuals and small owners for there to be a sufficiently broad rental market.
Data from Fotocasa Research shows that 68% of owners expect to raise rental prices or withdraw their property from conventional rental when the current contract ends due to the current regulatory context. Furthermore, 37% of these contracts will end in less than twelve months. And among the owners of these properties that are ending contracts, 34% are considering withdrawing the property from long-term rental to sell it, look for tenants by rooms, or allocate it to the vacation market.
That is why new regulations must also be evaluated for their impact on supply. Regulating rooms, temporary rentals, or tourist apartments may have good intentions, but the question must always be the same and must focus on the outcome of such policies: do these measures achieve more available housing or cause part of it to leave the market?
5. Decentralize opportunities to distribute demand
The fifth recipe looks beyond the major capitals and focuses on the country model. The solution to housing pressure cannot consist solely of trying to build more and more housing in the same places. We must also ensure that job opportunities and services are better distributed across the territory. There is a potential demand that points precisely in that direction. 13% of housing seekers plan to move to a smaller municipality in the short and medium term, while more than half of individuals would like to live in a rural area. Among the younger population, the interest in living outside cities skyrockets.
In fact, Spain is one of the European countries with the lowest percentage (14%) of the population living outside urban environments, well below the EU average (25%). But for this decentralization to be possible, we need infrastructure. Among those who wish to move to rural areas, 64% consider good transport connections essential and 50% demand adequate job opportunities. Therefore, improving metropolitan public transport and connections between major hubs and their areas of influence is also a housing policy.
Housing needs, ultimately, fewer preseason experiments and more solutions. Because, as the magnificent Dua Lipa sings, the Training Season has lasted too long and it is time to deliver results to the citizens.
about the author:
María Matos, Director of Studies and spokesperson for Fotocasa