Mario Conde has entered the debate about housing less than two months before the general elections of November 29. The former president of Banesto published a video on his Instagram account on October 6 in which he attributes the increase in housing costs to the imbalance between population growth and housing supply.
Conde argues that Spain has gone from about 40 million inhabitants to almost 50 million without construction increasing at the same pace. The most recent population data from the National Institute of Statistics places Spain at 49.8 million inhabitants as of July 1, 2026, the maximum of the historical series.
His diagnosis has a point of coincidence with the data from the Bank of Spain. In its Annual Report 2025, the agency estimates that between 2021 and 2025, a deficit of about 750,000 homes accumulated compared to the net creation of households. The bank attributes this differential to the fact that the production of finished housing fell below the growth of the number of households.
More construction as the main solution
Conde's proposal is based on increasing the number of available homes, both for purchase and for rent. In his video, he suggests stimulating public and private construction and considers it necessary to facilitate the participation of developers instead of introducing obstacles that delay projects.
The former banker also calls for reducing administrative procedures. In his view, urban planning procedures and decisions by municipalities and autonomous communities prolong construction timelines and hinder the supply from responding quickly to the increase in demand.
As an alternative to accelerate production, Conde proposes resorting to new construction techniques, including prefabricated housing. In his intervention, he argues that this system can reduce timelines compared to traditional methods.
The discrepancy between households and finished homes is not an estimate by Conde. The Bank of Spain calculates that around 92,000 homes were completed in Spain in 2025, while the net creation of households reached about 240,000 units. This difference contributed to widening the accumulated deficit since 2021 to about 750,000 homes.
The organization also points out that the net creation of homes remained strong in 2025, with about 240,000 new units, while residential production decreased by 9% compared to the previous year. The report warns that the availability of land and urban planning processes are some of the factors that condition construction.
The population data also confirms that the potential demand for housing has continued to increase. Between July 2025 and July 2026, the resident population grew by 444,205 people, reaching 49,801,559 inhabitants.
Tourist apartments, another factor pointed out by Conde
The former banker adds a second element to his diagnosis: tourist apartments: he argues that the expansion of this type of accommodation reduces the number of homes available for stable residential rental in certain areas.
Tourism also has a relevant quantitative dimension. Spain received 96.8 million international tourists during 2025, according to the INE, which described that figure as a historical maximum of its series.
These data do not allow attributing the general problem of access to housing solely to tourism. However, they do show that tourist demand operates on a residential market that presents supply deficits and that the effect of tourist apartments can vary greatly between territories.