This Thursday, Workers’ Commissions presented a proposal for the creation of a public investment fund for affordable housing (FIVA). The objective of the union is to take advantage of the new lines of financing for housing promotion and the low profitability that banks give to small savers to finance this mechanism, which would allow the construction of 50,000 affordable rental homes per year over the next decade. As explained by the general secretary, Unai Sordo, investors would obtain a return of around 3% and the builders and managers of this part of the public park would obtain estimated profits. The rental price would be reduced by at least 30%, with prices between 7 and 11 euros per square meter. For a home of 80 meters, the estimated rent would be between 560 and 880 euros per month.
As Sordo himself and the Secretary of Public Policies and Social Protection of CCOO have explained, Carlos Bravothe fund would channel both private savings and public resources. “When we talk about private savings, we are referring to individual savings, conveniently remunerated and which today are in financial institutions with little remuneration,” said Sordo, who has cited estimates from the Bank of Spain of some 50,000 million euros in extraordinary savings. for which the banks are not giving interest. “It would be a passbook model where people have the money in sight, available and with the guarantee of the Deposit Guarantee Fund of Credit Institutions,” said Bravo, who pointed out that the difference with respect to banking entities is that The organization would invest the money in public policies, specifically in housing.
The second way of raising resources would come from institutional investment, through those funds, such as those for employment pensions or other collective investment instruments or foundations, with a socially responsible vocation, which would also obtain a “prudent and reasonable”. In addition, Bravo has pointed out that the European Commission has established a specific police station for housing policies. “There will be community funds that can nourish the FIVA,” he indicated, as well as other state funds, which they propose managing through the Official Credit Institute (ICO).
The fund would require the cooperation of public administrations with available land. Firstly, from the Public Land Business Entity (Sepes), from the Ministry of Housing, but also from autonomous communities and city councils that, in addition to making the available public land available, must classify the homes as protected. And they must do so forever, to avoid practices such as those that have occurred in recent decades, which allowed homes built with public support to end up being sold on the free market at much higher prices.
The recipients of the fund would be both public and social economy entities, private non-profit entities and even limited-profit entities. These would have returns of around 3.5%. And it would not only be for construction, but also for the acquisition and rehabilitation of built homes. The union looks at the Austrian model, where limited-profit housing operators are responsible for a fifth of the housing stock and have built more than 840,000 properties.
The great asset of this fund would be the public guarantee of the State. “It would be comparable to state bonds,” said Bravo, but with a “specific” purpose. The next step is to present the idea to the Ministry of Housing, where the union will come with examples of success. “This is a proposal that follows models already implemented in other countries of the European Union, as is the case of public policies financed in France, among them, relevantly, housing, through the capture and remuneration of retail savings. through Livert A”, they indicate in a report, in which they estimate that 17% of the population lives in rent under this model, at an average price of 6.27 euros per square meter.
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