Canarian Housing Minister Says There Is ‘No Magic Bullet’ for Islands’ Housing Crisis

Pablo Rodríguez, the Canarian Government’s Housing Minister, has claimed that there is “no magic bullet” to solve the housing crisis on the Canary Islands.

In an interview with Cadena Ser, Rodríguez said that increasing market supply of housing would be the main way to alleviate market pressure, but admitted that this would not provide immediate solutions due to the time required to build homes.

Rodríguez added that bringing properties that are currently lying empty back onto the market would help the situation, and pointed to the regional government’s vacant housing pool scheme, in which the government underwrites rents.

The minister also highlighted schemes such as the €13 million Youth Rental Voucher initiative and stated that the government was working with banks to establish a Youth Mortgage scheme, which would provide assistance to young people wishing to get on the property ladder. However, he recognised that both initiatives are attempts to solve “a much greater problem”.

On the subject of holiday rentals, Rodríguez repeated that pressure from wealthier foreign buyers was putting prices out of reach of many Canarians, and added that the Canarian Government was still working to persuade the European Union to exempt the Canaries from anti-discrimination directives.

If successful, this would allow the government to restrict the sale of second homes to nonresidents. However, until now the response from European institutions has not been encouraging.

The Canarian Government’s recent law on holiday rental properties, which has seen thousands of properties removed from the market, has not yet resulted in any increase in residential offers. In fact, house prices and rents have continued to rise, as most affected property owners have simply declined to put their properties on the market.

On Lanzarote, meanwhile, the secretary of the Socialist Party, María Dolores Corujo, has accused the Canarian Government of passing up more than €90 million of state assistance by failing to declare “stressed areas” under the government’s Housing Act.

Declaration of a stressed area brings subsidies from central government, and allows local authorities to establish a register of rental prices, with the option of applying rent caps.

However, the Canarian Government, governed by the Coalición Canaria in alliance with the conservative PP, has refused to consider the measure, with Canarian President Fernando Clavijo claiming earlier this year that it would “solve nothing”.