In a new article published in The Conversation, Laura Núñez examines how growing barriers to homeownership are reshaping the relationship between housing, savings, and the long-term financial security of Spanish households.
Laura Núñez, Director of the Observatory of Household and SME Finances and Professor of Finance at IE University, is the author of “De propietarios a inquilinos: ¿qué se ha perdido por el camino?” (“From Homeowners to Renters: What Was Lost Along the Way?”), a contribution to the current debate on access to housing in Spain.
The article begins with an increasingly widespread reality: working, saving, and planning are no longer enough to guarantee access to housing under reasonable conditions. This challenge affects more than access to a home. By reducing the possibility of purchasing a home, it also limits, for many families, a traditional avenue for saving, building wealth, and protecting themselves against housing costs during retirement.
Núñez focuses on a less visible dimension of the debate: tax incentives for homeownership and the elimination, in 2013, of the tax deduction for new home purchases. She notes that the proportion of Spanish households living in owner-occupied homes fell from 80.5% in 2005 to 73.3% twenty years later, while emphasizing that the deduction was not the only factor behind this trend.
The article also considers whether the reform achieved the expected outcomes. According to the data examined by Núñez, the elimination of the incentive did not coincide with an easily identifiable structural moderation in housing prices. The evolution of households’ financial assets also does not clearly support the expectation that savings previously directed toward housing would shift into financial products.
The author also examines the evolution of housing supply, marked by a sharp contraction in construction and a limited subsequent recovery. Taken together, these factors lead her to a broader reflection: economic policies should be assessed not only by the distortions they create, but also by the benefits they provide.
By bringing this analysis into the public debate, the article contributes to the Observatory’s commitment to making rigorous and relevant financial knowledge more accessible to society.