Introduction

The Spanish housing system historically has been characterised by an imbalance in tenure in favour of homeownership and a social housing stock that is either residual or completely neglected. Since the mid-20th century, housing policies have not been impartial regarding this situation. In fact, housing provision in Spain has focused greatly on the homeownership sector, reducing social housing stock over time, and granting the private rented sector (PRS) the benefit of several regulations that have failed to change its downward course.

Analysis of the PRS in Spain cannot be decontextualised from the characteristics of the Spanish housing system at large. The Spanish PRS has often performed the role of social housing during booms in the housing market, as low-income households could not afford to enter any other form of tenure (Pareja-Eastaway, 2010; Pareja-Eastaway and Sánchez Martínez, 2016; López-Rodríguez and Matea l, 2019). Thus, rather than fulfilling the well-known theoretical functions of the PRS throughout the typical housing career (that is, first housing access or increasing socioeconomic mobility), in Spain, the PRS has partially solved the issue of housing access for disadvantaged groups. However, the rise in demand without a proper response from the supply side has contributed to a generalised increase in rents, which has also been aggravated in recent years by the popularity of temporary subletting for tourist purposes.

The narrow PRS is one factor that has partially prevented Spain from engaging in resilient reactions to the economic and financial crisis of 2008 and the recent COVID-19 pandemic, both of which have created an unstable framework for employment and economic growth and have had a negative impact on housing affordability. Since access to homeownership has been removed from the equation during these crises – due to the tightening of credit conditions for obtaining a mortgage and the sector’s bad reputation stemming from the increase in evictions carried out, among other issues – the growing pressure to find affordable housing is central to the Spanish housing debate (Pareja-Eastaway and Sánchez Martínez, 2016; López-Rodríguez and Matea, 2019). The historical trajectory of the Spanish housing system has currently left the authorities with fewer alternatives than in the past to grant adequate housing access, placing the PRS squarely in the spotlight of housing policy design.