There are regions of Spain that are building more houses than homes. And not even the wrings even go down

That Spain suffers from a housing deficit is no novelty. Just as it is not that construction is unable to advance to the rhythm of formation of new homes. ACI, the real estate consulting association, has just published a study that reveals something curious: there are 11 provinces in which it is built faster than new homes are constituted. The striking thing is that, although a priori that ‘surplus’ suggests less pressure in the market, its prices do not soften. On the contrary, they grow, as in the rest of the country.

Asturias leaves a good example.

A Data: 134,649. That is the real estate deficit that Spain accumulated last year according to the latest ACI report, the Spanish Real Estate Consulting Association. In this way, it may sound abstract or too theoretical, but the data reflects something very simple: the mismatch between the number of housing delivered and the new homes created throughout 2024. While the former stayed at 86,609, the seconds, which grow at much higher speed, amounted to 134,649, aggravating the scarcity of housing that Spain suffers.

What are the reasons? “This lag shows the structural difficulties facing the promoter sector in Spain, derived from both the shortage of finalist land and the increases in construction costs, normative restrictions and delays in urban processing,” concludes the report, which recalls that the 86,609 houses delivered remain below the forecast of new homes. The 2024 deficit is also added to the registered in recent years and that ACI estimates in 349,934 since 2020.

The association is not the first to warn of the difficulties that Spain is being found to adjust the creation of housing to the formation of new homes. In May the Bank of Spain estimated the lack of housing in between 400,000 and 450,000 units in the period 2022-2024, an elevated figure, but that moves in any case of the huge hole of 600,000 that indicated in its 2023 report.

Analyzing the map in detail. The most interesting thing about the study of ACI is not so much the photo at the national level as its details, the information provided by each community. The reason? Although in most cases the delivery of housing was unable to cover the creation of new homes, enlarging its residential deficit, the agency identified 11 provinces in which the result was the inverse. That is, the volume of built houses covered (and exceeded) the creation of households.

That is the peculiar situation in which Asturias, Burgos, Cáceres, Ciudad Real, León, Palencia, Salamanca, Soruel, Teruel, Valladolid and Zamora were found, to which the autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla are added. Although they got off the general trend of Spain and closed 2024 with ‘residential surplus’, their effect was barely felt on the national balance. Among those 13 territories there are only a plus of 5,005 homes above the houses created.

*The prices are extracted from the official registration of the average appraisal value of the free housing that the government publishes quarterly

Why is it interesting? So it reveals to us from the market. Although there are many buyer profiles (investors, families interested in a second residence or people who want to take a property and then dedicate it to the holiday rental), which in those 11 provinces (more Ceuta and Melilla) the delivery of homes exceeds the creation of households suggests a lower pressure of the demand on supply. And that, a priori, should move to market prices.

Asturias leaves an especially interesting case. According to data published by ACI, 1,820 homes were delivered last year and 257 new real homes were recorded. The balance remained in green numbers with a positive balance of 1,653 homes. The second example is found in Cáceres (1,077), where he accounted for 1,344 homes delivered to 267 new real homes.

And what happened to prices? They grew up. Despite this lower pressure in the market and that there was no mismatch between supply and demand for new homes, the house continued to take care. And that tells us about the key weight of other factors, such as costs or demand diversification. Government data on the appraisal value of the house shows that at the end of 2023 the square meter (m2) of free housing in the Principality was at 1,347 euros. A year later it was already at 1,473. The increase was therefore 9.35%, not very different from 9.43%of Madrid and several points above the state average, of 7.05%.

If we turn to idealist the photo is similar. The real estate portal estimates that in December 2023 the residential M2 for sale cost 1,371 euros in the Principality and in the same month last year it was already 1,471. In summary: an increase of 7.29%. In the case of Madrid (province) there are differences with respect to official appraisal data. During the same period it has passed from 3,208 to 3,771, which leaves an increase much greater than that of Asturias, of around 17.5%.

A rising market. The Principality data does not surprise if one takes into account that its real estate market is on the rise. The latest data from the General Council of Notaries, recently published by The voice of AsturiasThey show a 19.9% growth in housing sale operations and an year -on -year increase in the price of 7.7%, although their records place the M2 in 1,214 euros.

In Cáceres, the other province where there was a greater positive balance between housing delivered and household creation, prices also rose. At the end of 2023 Idealista calculated the M2 in 934 euros. A year later it marked 1,001.

Regions in the pole on. Cases such as Asturias or Cáceres are the exception. The ACI report shows that in the majority of the country the housing injected into the market did not cover the number of households created, in some cases with sensitive lags. The most bleeding cases are those of Madrid (-32.644), Barcelona (-21.148) and Alicante (-9.143), “Markets with high demand pressure,” recalls the Real Estate Consulting Association. The island provinces also accumulate a considerable deficit, which between the Balearic Islands, Las Palmas and Santa Cruz de Tenerife approaches the 20,000 homes.

Investigating the causes. The report is not limited to pointing out the mismatch of the sector, it also describes some keys that explain it. For example, remember that in 2023 Spain lived an “exceptional increase” in the creation of households (it went from 115,814 to 201.211), to a large extent promoted by the arrival of immigrants, and points out that the forecasts pass through the population of the country continues to grow.

To be more precise, the projections contemplate that the census exceeds 53 million in 2035. Regarding the number of new homes, if the forecasts give in the nail, Spain will reach a peak of 360,000 this year, time from which it will be stabilized until it stays in 200,000 annually the next decade.

“This paradox can generate more market tensions due to structural factors,” says ACI before mentioning three keys that explain that household creation stabilizes despite the increase in population: aging, which comes accompanied by more unipersonal homes, the decline in birth, the delay in emancipation due to precariousness and “changes in coexistence models” No children or shared houses.

Finally, a warning. “It is no longer enough to increase the housing park. It is essential to reorient the residential policy towards the functional adaptation of the existing park,” concludes ACI. As? Through rehabilitations, diversifying the park, with smaller and accessible homes, and facilitating the “strategic location” of the offer. “The growing mismatch between the population and households forces to integrate factors such as mobility, integration of foreign population and territorial redistribution of demand in planning.”

Imagen | M.M.V. (Flickr)

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