The protest for housing returns this Saturday to the streets of Valencia. Shortly after 11:00 a.m., different social groups have started a demonstration from Porta de la Mar to denounce what they consider the conversion of housing into "a speculative good" and to demand affordable rents, more public housing, and measures against evictions. The march is expected to end in front of the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía, the venue this Saturday for the Valencia Real Estate Summit 2026, a meeting dedicated to real estate investment that brings together more than a thousand attendees and whose program includes debates on markets, taxation, regulation, and sector perspectives.
The call is driven, among others, by Entrebarris, the Housing Union of Valencia, the Tenants' Union of Valencia, and the Platform of Those Affected by Mortgages (PAH). The choice of the destination for the demonstration is deliberate: the organizers want to contrast their demands with the investors' congress taking place within the City of Arts and Sciences. The Valencian protest is also part of a coordinated mobilization this weekend in dozens of Spanish cities for access to housing.
"We no longer want crumbs"
The spokesperson for the PAH, José Luis González, defended at the beginning of the march that the movement wants to raise the level of pressure on the administrations. "We no longer want crumbs in housing policies, we want bread and we are going to achieve it with a solid and forceful struggle," he stated, before announcing that the mobilization this Saturday aims to mark the beginning of "a new dynamic" of protests.
The organizers demand actions on different fronts, from a reduction in rental prices to an increase in the public housing stock, the suspension of evictions without housing alternatives, and measures against homes in the hands of large owners. These are demands from the organizing groups and not measures agreed upon by the administrations. The call disseminated over the last few days is presented under the slogan "For the right to housing. Out with speculators and rentiers" and explicitly sets the Palau de les Arts as the end of the route.
The rejection of the decrees increases tension
The demonstration takes place just a few hours after the Congress of Deputies rejected this Friday the two housing decrees previously approved by the Council of Ministers. PP, Vox, and Junts voted against both texts, while other parties also rejected some of them. The initiatives included measures on contract renewal, protection against certain evictions, temporary rentals, and restrictions linked to speculative housing purchases.
This parliamentary result has added a new argument to the protests. Andrea Aleixo, spokesperson for the Tenants' Union of Valencia, stated this Saturday that there is "a lot of anger in the streets" and described the rejected decrees as a "minimal proposal." "We knew it was a minimal proposal and not even that has been achieved," she expressed during the start of the mobilization.
The organizers propose a general strike in November
The next step proposed by part of the housing movement goes beyond the demonstrations of this weekend. Aleixo has called to create strike committees in workplaces, educational centers, and neighborhoods, with the aim of building a call for a general strike that the organizers want to schedule for mid-November. "We ask that strike committees be created in all workplaces, educational centers, neighborhoods, that people organize," she explained.
The call does not yet equate to a formally convened general strike for a specific date. The tenants' unions have been advocating for that possibility for days, and the protests this weekend are taking place under slogans that point towards an escalation of the mobilization, but its celebration and conditions will depend on subsequent organization and the union actors that end up supporting it.
A protest in front of a congress with sold-out tickets
The chosen endpoint for the march adds a symbolic dimension. The Valencia Real Estate Summit 2026, organized by PropHero, takes place this Saturday from 10:00 AM to 8:00 PM at the Palau de les Arts and announces more than 1,000 attendees and over 15 speakers, with tickets sold out. Its program includes discussions on investment, interest rates, taxation, property, and regulation, with participants such as Juan Ramón Rallo, Toni Nadal, and Albert Rivera.
For the organizers of the demonstration, simultaneously holding a protest for access to housing and a major real estate investment meeting precisely summarizes the conflict they want to denounce. For the promoters of the congress, on the other hand, the meeting is aimed at analyzing opportunities, regulation, and the evolution of real estate capital over the coming years. These are two opposing approaches to the residential market that this Saturday physically coincide at the same point in Valencia.
Valencia opens a weekend of mobilizations
The Valencian protest is one of the first of a weekend with calls for housing in numerous points across the country. Madrid, Barcelona, Málaga, Cádiz, Huelva, Zaragoza, Valladolid, and other cities have planned mobilizations between this Saturday and the coming days, in a context marked by the fall of government decrees and the continuation of the camp that began at Puerta del Sol after Maricarmen's eviction.
In Valencia, the message from the organizers is that the protests do not end upon reaching the Palau de les Arts. The PAH speaks of opening "a new dynamic" and the Tenants' Union wants to use the mobilization as a starting point to organize a possible general strike. The parliamentary rejection this Friday has heightened the tension around an issue that had already led housing collectives to call for this march: access to a home at prices they consider affordable and the demand for deeper changes in housing policy.