A Glimmer of Hope in Sánchez’s Transparency Push

The current PSOE government has gotten many (most) things wrong in dealing with the Spanish housing crisis. And, to be fair, they aren’t alone in their failures. But sometimes, you have to give credit where credit is due.

On June 4 a letter was sent from Prime Minister Sanchez to the presidents of all of the autonomous regions. It is for the purpose of kicking off negotiations for a new State Housing Agreement. And it actually has some productive proposals.

This is especially true with regards to transparency.

Housing policy in Spain is a complicated matter, along with everything else, because of the many layers of government that exist and the division of responsibilities between them. There is the national government, the autonomous communities, the provincial governments and, of course, local city governments.

Many areas have divided responsibilities with some aspects residing at the national level and others at more local levels. Thus the need for negotiations to establish priorities that will be acceptable to everyone.

The letter itself is focused on what Sanchez describes as three key pillars for a new State Housing Agreement for 2026-2030. These include tripling of funding for public housing – Spain has one of the lowest levels of investment in the OECD – to €7 billion.

There is also a call to protect any new public housing to be protected from future sell-offs. In the past 45 years, the government says, 2.4 million housing units were built but most of them were sold off.

“The government proposes that the regional presidents commit to ensuring that all ‘housing financed with public money permanently maintains its status as social housing and, therefore, always offers an affordable ownership or rental alternative for citizens’.”

The third pillar is the need for market transparency. Sales data in the housing market has been fragmented, partial or hidden up until now. This reduces trust in the real estate market.

Increased Transparency

Taking a proactive stance to increase the affordable housing stock is positive. However, there are questions as to whether that is the most efficient manner for the use of those tax dollars.

For instance, does it mean refusing more efficient private sector housing management in the future even if it would produce more housing that helps more people? Has research been done that shows such an increase in direct housing investment would be more effective than providing public sector incentives?

This is the same government that has mooted the disastrous proposal to tax Non-EU Residents 100% of the purchase price on resale homes. Anyone sane would be skeptical of their intentions or ability to separate ideology from fact.

However, the third “pillar” in the letter – transparency – is worthy and overdue. For too long sales price data has been hidden in shadows:

Finally, Pedro Sánchez proposes ending the monopoly on information held by private portals and creating a public database that would allow state administrations and citizens to know the real sale and rental prices in their city. “Only with such transparency will it be possible to design truly effective public policies and help citizens to negotiate the price of their homes properly,” he argues.

This is a decades long problem and it is time that it is done with. Currently, Spain lacks “a public and reliable database”, which means that the market is dependent upon private portals and approximations cobbled from multiple sources.

The private portals themselves, such as Fotocasa and Idealista, only have asking price data, not the final sales price.

According to the idealista.com article, the proposal by Sanchez calls for a jointly managed system where data can be aggregated and made “available to citizens, universities, and the [real estate] sector through a web portal.” Continuing “blindly”, he notes, isn’t an option.

The good news is that Spain is already improving as a transparent real estate market. The 2024 Global Real Estate Transparency Index (GRETI) ranked Spain as in the top 18 real estate markets in the world. It is in the top 10 in the EU.

Making sales price data public and easily available would strengthen this trend and help build confidence. That is especially true when it comes to the foreign buyers market, which accounts for 19% of market share. Foreign buyers, even more than locals, want transparency – especially those coming from countries where it exists.

Cautious Industry Support

Overall, there has been a positive response to the proposal from industry players and commentators. Idealista spokesperson, Francisco Iñareta has indicated that the portal would commit to making this data available to users.

“At idealista, we are committed to giving this information maximum visibility and adding it to our announcements and reports as soon as the government makes it public.”

However, while Iñareta was positive on the proposal, he noted that the real problem remains a lack of rental supply. And this is because the government “has been systematically attacking landlords for 7 years and there is no sales supply because just over 100,000 houses are built per year, when at least three times more would be needed.”

Transparency is great. So is good policy that encourages the development of the market, not undermining it with measures that discourage house construction and long term rentals.

The commitment to increasing public investment in social housing – if it can overcome the complicated political jockeying and bureaucratic hurdles of Spain’s political system – would be a positive contribution. It could help alleviate supply constraints, though the devil is in the details and we should wait and see how they intend to disburse this cash (assuming anything gets off the ground – a big “if”).

Let’s hope that this process will mark the arrival of sanity and positive proposals that will improve the market. All players will need to demonstrate political will and a commitment beyond electoral positioning. Accepting the proposal to establish a central database is probably the easiest first step and the clearest positive development in some time.

By Adam Neale | Property News | July 17th, 2025

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