Graffiti seen in Barcelona, Catalonia
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I get that people want to see regulations on landlords, etc, but naysayers here don’t seem to have considered that it might be easier to convince would-be tourists that a place isn’t a relaxing holiday destination than it is to get a majority of the right level of politicians to agree to draft complex legislation in opposition from monied and powerful capitalist interests. Targeting tourists is totally fair game and good strategy, that doesn’t rule out pursuing regulations as well.
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They must have delicious boots
Yeah, a tenant should definitely have more rights over the owners property than the owner. Keep thinking that way.
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An important population we need to increase is ethical landlords.
And by ethical, I mean former.
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People who can no longer afford their mortgages would disagree with you.
I and many working people like me can't afford a mortgage EVER because all of the market is bought up for renting, so they would become just like me, except I'd have a real fucking job
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This post did not contain any content.wrote last edited by [email protected]
Your neighbor was your friend... Until they sold out.
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I am myself a foreigner in Barcelona, and I'm well aware that me coming here pushes out local people out of the city.
Not sure why you're so defensive about it, is it a widely documented phenomenon.
Over the past decade, Lisbon has undergone a startling metamorphosis, shifting from one of Europe’s most affordable capitals to its most unaffordable. This dramatic change is evident in the skyrocketing house prices, which surged by 176% across the city between 2014 and 2024 and by over 200% in its historic central districts. Today, Lisbon leads Europe’s housing unaffordability rankings, a stark reflection of its home price-to-income ratio. This trend isn’t confined to the capital; nationally, Portugal has plummeted from 22nd out of 27 EU countries for housing unaffordability in 2015 to first place today. For a country where 60% of taxpayers earn less than €1,000 per month, securing a rental in Lisbon below that price is only feasible if one is willing to occupy 20 square metres or less.
Simultaneously, both the hotel industry and the short-term rental sector received significant promotion, alongside initiatives designed to attract tourists, digital nomads, international students, and transient young professionals. The impact on Lisbon’s historic centre has been dramatic, with half of all homes now holding a short-term rental licence, a figure that escalates to 70 out of every 100 in the most tourist-saturated areas. Compared to the city’s population, Lisbon’s short-term rental density is six times higher than Barcelona’s and 3.5 times higher than London’s. Furthermore, the number of hotels in the city has tripled since 2010, rising from approximately 100 to 300, with plans for around 50 more already approved by the city council. This phenomenon is not unique to Lisbon, playing out across other European cities, particularly in Southern Europe, where residents are increasingly pushing back through protests.
https://movingmarkets.org/lisbons-housing-crisis-a-capital-transformed-a-city-divided/
Did you ask to pay more for rent or a house? Didn't think so.
Did your landlord/seller raise prices 'cos The Market
allows them to be greedy bastards? I'd bet so.
Maybe a picture will help: replace "refugees" with wichever group you want to blame for rising prices.
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My "airBNB" is a hamoc tent at the park
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An important population we need to increase is ethical landlords.
And by ethical, I mean former.
that's excellent
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I think it can be generally said that the US and their success stories are a force for the bad in the world.
All the high profile multi-billion dollar tech companies to arise in the last 15-20 years have been some form or other of using technology to skirt existing regulations and to move the risk and expense onto others.
PayPal, Uber, Airbnb, DoorDash, you name it, their "innovations" weren't any kind of innovation in technology, they were innovations in creative ways to make something 5% more convenient at the expense of making it 500% worse all round for everyone.
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You have to realise that landlords aren't the plague. They're the buboes. A symptom.
If you can take your spare money (a concept from days gone by, I know), buy a house for X, rent it out for Y a month, then finally sell it in 20 years for Z, and be 99.99% guaranteed to make more money from it than you can from pretty much any other source, then why wouldn't you?
Remove the incentive for that (homes that don't go up by more than the inflation rate), there will be no need for them to exist.
But in any case, the size of the building projects required would likely be government level anyway, and they can be the "landlord" for anyone not wanting to buy. This was called council houses in the olden days, before Maggie Thatcher killed that.
one home per person, no homes owned by businesses
apartment buildings become condos, each unit owned by a person to do with as they please
woodchip any business owners who fight back against the new regulation
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The landlords aren't doing anything wrong, if the market price is too high you have to increase supply it's that easy.
ethically wrong or legally wrong?
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I know at least one city in France taking measures to severely limit Airbnb, because it's becoming a ghost town and people who actually work there can't find anywhere to live. The housing situation in the area is terrible.
Good for them. I already can't stand "professional" landlords that get into the business of shitting over places people need to live to maximise profit. Those who are taking over those spaces to turn them into fake hotels without the constraints are the lowest of that scum.
Governments let them do it.
I wonder why we pay taxes to people who actively work against common interests for the benefit of the few.
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What I don't get is why the people of Barcelona want tourists out. That's such a dumb knee-jerk reaction imho. Tourism is not the problem. In fact it's a major revenue for the city. They could use it to build affordable housing for locals. The government could put a cap on rent and similar restrictions on whatever Airbnb arrangements. If it's not more profitable to give out one's property for short term rentals then the trend will fade. If someone can explain the current anti-tourism stance as opposed to a push for alternative measures I'd appreciate it.
Tourism is cancer
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People who can no longer afford their mortgages because they suddenly can't leech of off working people can go fuck themselves.
"There's a great place to go when you're broke: to work!"
- big time landlord and big time conservative asshole (but I repeat myself) Dave Ramsey.
Luckily all these rugged individual landlords already know exactly where their boot straps are! Right??
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Do those rentals still exist?
No because they dont really work.
You wouldn't want randos in your house like that
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ethically wrong or legally wrong?
I mean my statement is pretty broad, there might be some landlords somewhere who do things that are either ethically or legally wrong. But in general they aren't doing either.
Landlords are people who invest their money and time in housing and just like any investment they want it to be profitable.
If it's too profitable it's not their fault, it's that we have to build more houses, have better transportation and better public housing to ease off pressure on the private market, not kill all landlords. -
The landlords aren't doing anything wrong, if the market price is too high you have to increase supply it's that easy.
They certainly aren't doing anything unexpected.
But, the word "wrong" carries an implication of moral judgment, and most people here are gonna disagree with you on that one.
That is one of the reasons conservatives are so gung-ho on rugged individualism and individual responsibility while being against regulation. In public they get to tell supporters that they are all strong smart boys who can make their own decisions, while also implying that "others" in disadvantaged groups are in their situations due to character flaws and subhuman status. In private they get to ruin the world and apparently prey on children pretty often because the people impose no rules on them.
Large numbers of individuals are easy for them to manipulate. Written laws and regulations are much less so, even though not impervious.
Edit to add:
This whole "they are behaving as expected == they are not doing anything wrong" attitude from the right quickly morphs into "they are a business, not a charity" and other similar sayings.
That flawed reasoning plus a few more leaps in logic then leads to seeing profitability as an indicator of morality.
And even THAT infiltrates personal lives. Resting for mental & physical health instead of building a skill or starting a side hustle? Laziness! Wasted hours of your life!
Spend some time and money on a hobby that brings joy to your life and gives you a reason to exercise? Wasteful! Selfish! Foolish! Just think of what that money could have done in the market h while you chose a better hobby that could scale into something profitable!!
Whoa whoa hold the fuck up. What do you mean that you intentionally lose money on your hobbies!? What kind of god-fearing red-blooded american just tosses aside the Rules of Acquisition so carelessly?
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Cute. Who protects the property? Mutual Aid sounds nice on paper. The truth of human nature is that the strong will take anything you work to build.
We do.
Unlike people like you, anarchists are responsible people in society. -
Did you ask to pay more for rent or a house? Didn't think so.
Did your landlord/seller raise prices 'cos The Market allows them to be greedy bastards? I'd bet so.
Maybe a picture will help: replace "refugees" with wichever group you want to blame for rising prices.I was ready to pay more as my salary is much higher than an average salary from a local company (and I know, my gf has a local salary).
Remove the higher salaries from a place and rents will drop as nobody can afford higher rents. They did during covid, when a lot of people left Barcelona.
And let's be honest, I came from a good work situation to another good work situation, my move has nothing to do with being a refugee.
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Hello,
Not sure if you're still in Barcelona, but there is [email protected]
Not anymore, recently left. Honestly tourism and it's many side effects was one of the motivating factors.
