The property sector is in a sweet spot after emerging strongly from the coronavirus crisis by demonstrating its resilience. In this sense, Tecnotramit makes a positive forecast for the market’s evolution during the second part of the year and analyses the industry’s main challenges and issues.
Vicenç Hernández Reche, Tecnotramit’s CEO and chairman for the National Association of Property Agents (Asociación Nacional de Agentes Inmobiliarios, ANAI) and the Catalan Association of Property Agents (Asociación de Agentes Inmobiliarios de Catalunya, AIC), stresses ‘the paradigm shift the housing sector has experienced after the pandemic is significant.’ Hernández Reche highlights the catalytic role played by emerging PropTech, which have shaken up the sector. Real estate agencies put the client at the centre and offer more services. ‘One of the worst things that can happen to a sector is to live with a degree of comfort, that “this is the way things have always been done” is installed in the traditional argument: this is the first step towards its disappearance,’ says the expert.
Buying or renting: there is no debate in Spain
The expert is clear on clients preferring to purchase or rent: ‘We still wish to buy. There are those who say that young people no longer want to buy… they just can’t. Therefore, rather than the perception having changed in the preference for renting over buying, what has been identified is a change in the way we want to live. People are starting to firmly rethink how much space they really need on a daily basis.’
The role of the Administration in the Spanish property sector
Tecnotramit defends the Administration’s important role in facilitating the flow of the economy and establishing regulation at certain times. However, the company’s CEO states that ‘it is illogical to say that housing is extremely important and fundamental for people’s lives when it is the most taxed asset.’
Tecnotramit warns that, in order to alleviate the problem of access to housing for certain groups such as young people and the elderly, adequate measures have not been taken, as the law limiting rents is based on previous regulations in the UK, the US, and Germany which did not work. ‘Structural decisions for society as a whole cannot be taken with such a short-term vision,’ regrets Hernández Reche.