“40% of the price of housing is taxes. Okay now!”
The last guest on the podcast has a great virtue and a great problem. They are the same. It’s sincere. Perhaps too sincere. “I go to the media like someone who goes to the gym,” he admits. Have fun and sweat your shirt. “I don’t need to look good to anyone, except my wife, my children and myself.” And it shows. This week, visit Reading the Newspaper 20 minutes Gonzalo Bernardos (Barcelona, 1962), doctor in Economics, author of 39 books and fan of Espanyol, “but not a little, a lot, a lot.”
For Bernardos, the economic news of 2025 is “the rise of stock markets worldwide.” In his opinion, “overvalued stock markets.” “When will they fall? I would like to know,” he laments while acknowledging that this year he has achieved quite a few “gains.” “In my stock portfolio, I have only a few companies, I have liquidated all the banks and I am waiting for this to stick so I can buy again.” The teacher has a mantra: “I leave the last euro for someone else.”
At the national level, the economist believes that the most notable thing about the year is “a Government that screws up, screws up and screws up again in the housing market.” When Pedro Sánchez came to power, in mid-2018, only 2.2% of Spaniards saw housing as the main problem, according to the CIS. Almost eight years later, in October 2025, “this percentage has risen to 37%, making it the population’s greatest concern.”
“The rise in housing prices is due to low supply. It will continue to rise in 2026, 2027 and some more years, but not by 15%”
Bernardos explains the housing problem as if it were in one of his classes: “The main reason why prices rise is that there is a scarce supply. It is a structural cause. Will housing prices collapse if this low supply continues in the coming years? No,” he predicts.
And he continues: “In 2007, 59% of minors between 16 and 30 years old owned a home. In 2024, it has fallen to 27%. That is, there are many young people who have not bought a home and want to do so. A beastly reserve demand,” he points out. These young people “were in the rental market, which was becoming more expensive, but not to the current stratospheric levels.” Therefore, “the real estate boom belongs to young people, who buys basically with the help of parents.
Another reason that raises, in his opinion, the price of housing is the squatting. “In this country, for now, “The squatter has more rights than the owner.”, Gonzalo laments.
“Whoever defends that squatting is not a problem tells you: ‘Look, there are few complaints.’ Of course, if you have a police friend, he will recommend that you not report it, that you solve it on your own.” It is cheaper to “call a specialized company to negotiate with the tenants about leaving your house,” says Bernardos and gives the following example:
“In Catalonia, if you file a case in court and the tenant appeals, it is specifically 23 months. If you charge them 1,200 euros in rent, you will practically lose 30,000. It is more profitable for you to negotiate and pay 3,000 euros for the squatters to leave. But the thing is that many times you find a little gift: a destroyed home,” he exemplifies.
While this happens, the professor warns, “the owner will sell his home and others, if he has them. Which will generate a tighter rental market and price increases.
Looking to the future, Bernardos does not foresee very significant changes. “If this 2025, only 150,000 homes will begin to be built. Developers have more demand and raise the price. The problem moves to used housing and we will end the year with a 15% price increase. First key: low supply in the sales market. Second key: no one has done anything to stimulate housing.”
“We are assured of 2026, 2027 and probably another year with rising prices. However, not at 15%. Less and less and, above all, in high-end areas the increases will border on inflation.” prediction
BERNARDOS’ RECIPES FOR HOUSING
Bernardos believes he could fix the housing problem “in no time” with 3 measures; The problem, he says, is that current politicians are not willing to apply them because they will lose votes.
“First, The promoters must benefit. As? On the one hand, giving them a guarantee to buy land for 50% of the amount of that land. Only with one condition: the price must be a little lower than the market price. And on the other hand, the public administration does not have to make housing. Because every time they are done, a substantial part of the people do not pay and the care is not the best. I propose to prioritize the purchase.”
Second measure, “in Spain there is a lot of land”, we must use Urbanization Agents so that that land “goes from agricultural to residential in 3 years.” And third, construction licenses: “If they don’t give it to you in 3 months, administrative silence and onwards, the current 2-year periods destroy the profitability of the promoter.”
“The real estate sector alone contributes 53,000 million in taxes”
“What cannot be is for the administration to finance itself with housing. More than 40% of the price of housing is taxes, if I count from when the land is agricultural until it is sold. Imagine if we told the administration to regulate the price, but not to collect taxes. From 300,000 euros, it would come out to 180,000, talking about 3 and 4 bedroom homes”.
“Is the administration going to do this? No, because only counting what the real estate construction sector contributes in taxes, it is 53,000 million. Doesn’t the Government say that housing is the main problem? Okay now!”
“PEDRO SÁNCHEZ IS INTERESTED IN THE POSITION. PERIOD”
For the economics professor, who was candidate on the lists of PSC in the 2019 Barcelona municipal elections, “a Pedro Sánchez is interested in the position, period. That it has to please Puigdemont or Junqueras and generate an amnesty, it does, it doesn’t matter if he said otherwise before. If housing is important to Sumar now and they want to do populism with housing… It doesn’t matter. “The important thing is the votes.”
“The Government thinks that the important thing is not the facts, but the story: we are going to deceive the population and tell them that the measures that Sumar has requested are effective. No, rent controls have never worked, if they had ever worked, they would have been there forever. In Spain there was rent control from 1921 to 1985 and it destroyed the rental market“, sentence.
This is part of the podcast, where Bernardos also makes an economic assessment of 2025 and gives his opinion on other topics, such as the increase in the minimum wage or the absence of General State Budgets in Spain, extended from 2023. You can watch the full episode on YouTube, Spotify or Ivoox.
