Ibiza locals living in cars as party island sees rents soar
bbc.com
bbc.com
While it's true that summer rent is very expensive, people who work there can definitely pay it, but then you would not save THAT much, so people find their way into cheaper accommodations, whatever that means. So while I don't know the personal story of the interviewee, it's definitely not because a lack of jobs or low pay (a problem that DOES plague most of the country).
For hacker news, imagine if this article was about the "poor Google employee living in a van and cannot afford rent", you'd laugh at its face.
The guys who sell Christmas trees in NYC used to all be all from the Balkans. They’d show up on a tourist visa, sell their trees, live in sketch accommodation and boogie home when they sold their allocation.
Thanks for posting another side of this.
What you're saying makes a lot of sense.
You don't have to imagine it, you can read that article:
"23-year-old Google employee lives in a truck in the company's parking lot and saves 90% of his income."
-- https://www.businessinsider.com/google-employee-lives-in-tru...
My point is that most people here don't know the level at which jobs pay in Ibiza in summer, so I brought that up as a familiar comparison (people there work 3 months and live off that the rest of the year).
Why does that problem exist in Spain? Asking as a Spain newbie.
https://english.elpais.com/spain/2023-08-02/why-does-spain-c...
I met a guy from Galicia who's call center job was outsourced to Eastern Europe. So he moved there. In fact this is a job sector threatened by AI emergence.
Few reasons that seem to influence to some degree: impossible bureaucracy, very difficult to open companies, vicious cycle of stagnant economy, lots of "underground economy" that skew the official numbers, talent goes to work for other countries with better pay, a general hopelessness attitude that has permeated the culture, corruption at all levels.
Your analysis somewhat matches with a conversation I had here with a Spanish woman tourist some months ago.
We were chatting casually about this and that, and then she said she was not looking forward to going back to Spain / Europe, after her trip.
I asked her why.
I don't remember the exact words she used, but from what she said, my recollection is that she had been experiencing a kind of general malaise in the environment in Europe from some time.
Depressing.
This also matches with some of the news articles I have been reading for sometime now about Europe.
Nurses, teachers, doctors, firemen… especially those who are there just temporarily can’t afford housing and it’s a big problem for the correct functioning of the island.
You described the healthcare as free in the exact same sentence where you identified who pays for it.
I think socialized healthcare is the correct term.
IMO that is one of things they can do to address the housing issue we have but I have seen no mention of this policy anywhere.
Why? Is it just seen as a good investment?
I think each little area focuses on some red herring. Transplants, tech workers, digital nomads, foriegn investors, airbnb, but can those really be the same problem everywhere in the world? Idk seems like something else is going on.
NZ'er checking in. Late 40's - a good portion/most of my peer group bought houses in their mid 20's to 30's. Now the same age range can't unless they've got mega inehitances or very, very, good jobs.
Ditto UK/Australia/Canada etc.
All countries to a greater or lesser degree have the same cost of living crisis (arguably NZ is one of the worst at the moment).
Clown world indeed.
We speak as if the houses just build themselves and we just have to press these buttons in the right combination like software.
Everyone involved basically has better options than to build more housing so it should be no surprise we have a shortage.
Housing is affordable here. There's plenty of supply of single person apartments. Regular people can buy houses. Often the statistics hide this fact by comparing price per square foot, but the average apartment or house here is a lot smaller than in other places.
They’re an outlier.
I live in a depopulating city, but even so, whenever a single-family home in my neighborhood is torn down, it is replaced with a 3-4 story multi-family unit, increasing densification. An old bowling alley was torn down and is being replaced with a massive 14-floor, 200-unit condo. Empty space near the train tracks has become two huge condo buildings (200 units each, built by Japan Rail, of course). And this is just in the past few years.
Even in depopulating areas, huge projects are happening to increase housing supply as multi-generational households lose favor.
To get an external perspective, average house pricing [0] and average rent [1] have stably rose, while average wages have stayed basicslly flat [2] during these years:
[0] https://japanpropertycentral.com/2019/09/new-apartment-price...
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1202559/japan-rent-for-a...
Equivalent house in Japan is far more expensive than in Australia.
- available housing is primarily for single persons. Family housing has become a luxury, which makes having kids all the more expensive.
- those single person apparts are flimsier and less maintained than past homes. Leopalace grade housing is becoming widespread.
- buying anything above 2 rooms apparts will land you in the 30+ years debt area. And to get those you'll have to prove a stability level that's not common anymore thse days.
Your second is certainly not. The baseline expectation for Japanese homes is constantly improving and something built cheap today is many times better than something built cheap 20 years ago.
Yeah, you get a 30 year loan, but that’s standard. Where do people not do that to afford housing?
Also, appartments can have a very solid foundation cleanly matching mandated standards and very cheap resident rooms with paper thin walls and poor insulation. On paper they will be better homes (free internet, air conditionning, automated bathtub etc), in practice the difference will be less obvious.
On 30y loans, it's fine if you are a full fledged employee of a well regarded company. It's another story if you're a contractor (roughly half of the active population! [0]), and impossible as part timer.
[0] https://www.sangyo-rodo.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/toukei/koyou/ed6fc...
In the Czech Republic, an average monthly salary buys you about half a square metre. Supposing you don't spend on anything else. And most people earn less than the average...
Probably 90% of the United States by area. Honestly its just an urbanization problem. There are huge amounts of homes in safe neighborhoods in places you dont want to live in for 200k. See 95% of Pennsylvania for example.
[1] https://www.odt.co.nz/regions/queenstown/queenstown-housing-...
Zoning laws mean you can’t just build large volumes of cheap accommodation.
Many people died on a regular basis because of the unregulated living spaces you’re fantasizing about.
There are similar studies for traffic and pedestrian issues due to poor zoning.
The idea that somehow one builder in competition with other builders with no enforcement is going to make appropriate safety tradeoffs everywhere they need to is untenable.
To the traffic point I believe you may have what young urbanists uncharitably called car brain.
Less zoning -> more density -> fewer cars -> fewer deaths. Pedestrian safety a lagging effect unfortunately
Building codes prevent cheap housing more than zoning laws. It sure seemed like a marginally-informed rant to me.
I live on a street that attempted to convert grass-roots to a bike greenway. I don’t think I have car brain. Zoning is useful, but imperfect. It sounds like we’d agree to be against nimby residential protections of high-end housing, but that’s not what OP said. I didn’t realize OP’s post was just a dog whistle.
IMHO dense housing is cheap housing. Zoning groups(verb) anti-density regulations like lot setbacks & height restrictions
The government is obsessed with obtaining economic growth via unrestrained population growth.
There's simply not enough houses to increase the population of Australia by 1 million in 18 months and keep adding 2,000 population per day into the future.
People say "this won't end well". It's already ended badly and getting worse.
And the government - mostly landlord owning multi house portfolios - have zero interest in fixing it.
About 36% more populous than Australia, with more than double the immigration target, and less habitable land.
The thing is - why?
Politicians want "economic growth" at literally any price.
And seemingly, the population of Canada (and Australia) want this too - the politicians keep getting voted back in. Though I must say here in Australia the current government at no point gave "unconstrained population growth" as one of its policies - and an election is coming - we'll find out then if people care or not.
The Australian government made a big announcement in December that it would be cutting back population growth perhaps because so many people are angry about it. And yet last month we had the largest population growth in 70 years announced - apparently the government has nothing at all to stop the additional 2,000 people a day arriving.
Australia is in its worst housing crisis in its history, and at the same time there is no restriction at all on foreigners buying Australian housing, real estate is exempt from international money laundering laws - making Australian real estate one of the top places to put your criminal money from Russia or China or Burma or whatever, the government pays tax benefits to property investors so young people cannot buy, houses are being converted into AirBNB tourism accommodation. And still the government fails to act on any of this - the cynical might wonder if all these things driving up house prices is in fact enjoyed and loved and making the landlord politicians happy.
I also know people whose parents' entire retirement plan is just downsizing and using the extra cash to supplement their social benefits. So yeah, kicking the can down the road, hoping some bigger economies figure out a way out of this problem, so we'll just follow along.
And I'm saying this as a renter, who is just in the sidelines with no real desire to buy as of now.
Current Government or the previous Morrison Government, and, in either case, what evidence do you have for that ?
https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/populati...
(2021) https://population.gov.au/sites/population.gov.au/files/2021...
Both skirt any policy to increase or decrease population, just focus on the planning and the need to decrease pressure on city infrastructure by increasing growth in rural areas.
The ABS lays out several paths, net-zero migration and slow population decline from ~ 25 million, along with low, medium, and high growth.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2023/dec/12/austra...
Yes population is important, no it's not the crux of the matter.
> And the government - mostly landlord owning multi house portfolios - have zero interest in fixing it.
That 100% is. Would add that news corp is largely a portal to realestate and nine/fairfax is to domain.
“The housing market hasn’t kept up with the surge in migration over the past 12 to 18 months”
And
“But I think in the short term, you’re certainly seeing some growing pains because the housing market can’t really keep up.”
Certainly here in WA it seems to have gone utterly nuts in the last year and a half.
So you have a lack of properties pushing up rents/sale costs as people need a home to live in and will pay what they have to pay until they can't. Anyone buying has to pay more than the previous owner to ensure a capital gain after being negatively geared to avoid the economy collapsing as Australia's wealth is in property. Requiring someone else to pay more than the previous person is a definition of a pyramid scheme. Higher purchase price then requires higher rents to cover costs and homes become even more out of reach.
You will be extremely lucky to find a house within 45-60 minutes of Sydney selling for less than $1,000,000 / $650,000 usd. Those houses in the $1,000,000 range will be little more than wooden, asbestos ridden shacks, last renovated 30-40 years ago so needing big renovations. The average salary in Sydney is $80,000 according to https://www.forbes.com/advisor/au/personal-finance/average-s...
I believe much of the “Western” world is in slow decline and part of the problem is lax immigration policies especially when combined with a welfare state. In the long run, it’s just not sustainable.
You can believe anything you'd like, you're entitled, but that doesn't mean it's real.
EDIT: And while I am generally loathe to address green-text posts, especially when rightly autokilled, this topic tends to make people think "the truth is being hidden" or whatever, no matter how obviously frothing the post is. So to the claim "four million immigrants in the last 15 years" - total migration into the Netherlands over the last twenty years is 400,000 and net is 220,000. https://www.cbs.nl/en-gb/dossier/asylum-migration-and-integr...
I once was in financial hardship due to a depression and wanted to apply for welfare. When I visited the local government office to apply for welfare, probably 90% of people were from African countries.
The local government made it complicated for me to apply for welfare, so eventually I gave up and found other help (through family) to get my life back on track. But I am sure, for most people applying from African countries, they will not encounter many obstacles when applying for welfare.
Another thing that bothered me regarding Dutch government ... Many years later I spent a holiday in Thailand. I met my girlfriend there. We stayed together, got a daughter. When I wanted to visit The Netherlands with my girlfriend and daughter, it was a very complicated and expensive process to get my girlfriend and daughter to come on over.
While, again, people from African countries don't need papers and all to get access to the country (perhaps it's even beneficial to have no passport is such cases, as I've heard of immigrants throwing their passport away (or hiding) when moving to EU countries, perhaps to prevent background and age checks.
And I wouldn't be surprised if people from African countries would be able to get a Dutch passport in a shorter amount of time and with less effort compared to my Thai girlfriend.
You could turn Ibiza into "not Ibiza", but be careful you may get what you ask for: a place without any economy anymore.
The problem is that you must lock away the real estate from capital, otherwise it becomes yet another asset for chasing yield.
https://www.huduser.gov/portal/pdredge/pdr_edge_featd_articl...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38117223 (citations)
https://www.slowboring.com/p/what-can-we-really-learn-about-...
Even more the theory can't explain the sudden jump of house prices that happened during covid in many places. People were moving out of the big cities and house prices still increased? How can that be caused by government regulation not building enough houses.
The reality is that the house prices are much better explained by the fact that the top 1% have essentially unlimited funds compared to everyone else and the main thing to buy are assets, especially during covid.
It's easy to observe when walking around the richest parts of cities like Melbourne, Auckland, Sydney... 90% of thr biggest houses are almost always completely shuttered, because it's the 5th home for the owners and they only use it for a couple of weeks a year.
But what really requires evidence is the extraordinary claim that housing is some kind of special case market where prices don't respond to supply, despite the fact that places with high supply elasticity (Texas, Tokyo, Vienna) are more affordable than places with tightly limited supply, and despite the fact that housing prices took off in the U.S. just as strict zoning became common.
Prices increased during covid because everyone was suddenly spending much more time at home and wanted more space, a home office, etc. This is well understood.
The top 1% have more money to buy everything, not just houses. But most other goods are getting more affordable over time, not less.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/markets/asia/surging-tokyo-property-...
Non market housing isn’t exposed to capital, and therefore avoids the demands capital places on housing and extraction of ever increasing rents.
Either fix strictly monetary inequality, or make sure the wealth (housing etc) is spread around more equally regardless of how much money is in someones's bank account. This needs to happen right now.