The leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, recognized this Monday that the housing market in the Community of Madrid, where Isabel Díaz Ayuso governs, is “tense.” A situation that, according to the head of the opposition, is due to the “very high” arrival of people from “Venezuela, Mexico or Colombia” with “high incomes” who have monopolized the real estate market. This was stated in an interview on Onda Cero in which he maintained that in Spain there is a “real estate bubble” because “the necessary homes are not built.”
Feijóo has freed both his party and his regional presidents of all responsibility for the current situation of the housing market. Although the leader of the PP likes to boast that his barons rule over 70% of the Spanish population, and that powers over housing are transferred to the communities, Feijóo has placed all the blame on the central government.
“The basic legislation, the land law, is from the central government,” he said, adding that “the housing law” goes “against” what Spain needs “because it increases” the price and “reduces the number of operations, the purchase and sale contracts that have been made.” Precisely the housing law affects the so-called “stressed areas” in the real estate market.
Feijóo has also pointed out fiscal policy as one of the elements that makes housing more expensive. “If you maintain taxes during a real estate crisis, which represent between 25% and 30% of the total, if you do not adjust taxes downwards, it harms” buyers, he pointed out. Furthermore, he added, “if prices intervenethat an owner cannot rent above a price, that is an interventionist and demagogic policy that makes housing more expensive, he added.
Asked specifically about the region governed by Isabel Díaz Ayuso, where housing prices are more expensive, Feijóo said that the number of “people who have come to Madrid with high incomes is very high.” The leader of the PP has pointed out: “Venezuelans, Mexicans, from Colombia.” That, he added, “has made housing more expensive.”
The leader of the PP has put the arrivals in this situation at “thousands of people”, which in his opinion “stresses the price of housing in Madrid”. Something that, he said, “does not happen in other regions.”
In 2023, Ayuso approved a tax incentive precisely to encourage this type of investment: subsidizing the purchase of real estate by foreign millionaires with a 20% deduction in personal income tax for the regional section.
The measure joined another one launched by the PP Government led by Mariano Rajoy, known as the ‘golden visa’ that allowed foreign citizens to obtain a residence permit in Spain in exchange for buying houses. Since 2018, foreigners have bought their residence in Spain and apartments worth 4.8 billion euros with this method.
When the Government announced the end of the ‘golden visa’, Ayuso cried out. “It attacks investments in key areas of Spain, especially in PP governments; “It goes directly against investment in Andalusia and the Community of Madrid,” he said.
Feijóo has also regretted that “Operation Chamartín” is not underway. A project on “public land” that, he said, has been paralyzed for “I don’t know how many years, decades.” The project has not been called that since 2019, when it was approved by the City Council led by Manuela Carmena at the time. The development of Madrid Nuevo Norte, as it was called, has begun with the works on the Chamartín Station.
Meanwhile, the mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez Almeida, has reduced the budget by 40% to build “affordable apartments” through the Housing Company in 2025. And Ayuso’s plans do not take off.
Feijóo has concluded that Spain is experiencing a “real estate bubble.” “We need 250,000 and we are building 100,000,” he maintained. “There is a bubble in which homes are not built,” he added.
This Sunday, surrounded by his regional barons, Feijóo presented his housing plan in Asturias, which involves lowering taxes and ceding public land to construction companies.
Feijóo sees it as “implausible” to meet with Puigdemont without ruling out censorship
Feijóo has considered a photograph of him with the Junts leader on the run from justice, Carles Puigdemont, “implausible”. Expressly asked about a hypothetical visit to Puigdemont before being amnestied, like the one that Sánchez has said he will do, the PP leader said that “it is not a serious condition.”
Of course, the head of the right has opened up to leading a motion of censure that implies the favorable vote of Junts and Vox, as Santiago Abascal proposed this weekend. “A motion of no confidence to go to elections is what the country needs,” he said. The ultra leader has repeated several times that he is willing to join his votes with the Catalan independentists to remove Sánchez from Moncloa.
“If the members of Junts want elections and a motion of censure, I will present it,” Feijóo has promised, who has assured that he has no intention of negotiating Puigdemont’s votes. “You do not negotiate with those who have pending cases with Justice,” he said, although the PP has negotiated with Junts this same legislature.
In 2023, Feijóo’s envoys negotiated directly with Junts the possible support of Puigdemont’s deputies for the investiture of the PP leader. The amnesty was ruled out and pardons were considered, as a senior leader of the organization recognized a year ago. In addition, the PP and Junts have regularly negotiated in Congress to advance initiatives. The last, the tax counter-reform against the Government. The leadership of the parliamentary group has usually recognized that in Congress they speak with all groups except EH Bildu.
Feijóo has said he is a more reliable political leader for Puigdemont than Pedro Sánchez. “Mr. Puigdemont will have to decide,” he said. Feijóo has given as an example what happened in the Barcelona Mayor’s Office, where Junts won but the PSC governs. “He has deceived him, after winning the mayor of Barcelona, Mr. Sánchez prevents him from governing.” The leader of the PP has momentarily put himself in the shoes of the former Catalan president.
“What do I gain if I win the elections and don’t govern and don’t get amnesty? “It is the question that is being asked,” he considered. Feijóo has ignored in his speech that it was the PP that gave the necessary votes to the PSC to unseat Junts from Barcelona City Council. In fact, the PP, with Feijóo at its head, has boasted since July 2023 of having seized the Mayor’s Office from Xavier Trias “in exchange for nothing.”
The PP leader has acknowledged that in 2023 they negotiated their own investiture with Junts “when we had the option of transferring through people from Junts.” “The proposals he made to Sánchez are the ones he made to me,” he said. “I told him no. “I am more reliable than Sánchez, Puigdemont can reach that conclusion: Mr. Sánchez has lied to me, Feijóo has not.”
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