Tens of thousands of people have demonstrated across Spain after parliament rejected two government housing decrees, bringing the country’s dispute over rents, evictions and housing supply back onto the streets.

Tens of thousands of people marched across Spain on Saturday, 3rd October, demanding action over rising rents, evictions and access to housing, a day after parliament rejected two government measures intended to strengthen protections for tenants.

In Madrid, the government delegation estimated attendance at around 70,000, while organisers put the figure considerably higher. Demonstrations were organised in more than 50 cities. In Valencia, clashes broke out near a property investment conference at the City of Arts and Sciences, while protests elsewhere were largely peaceful. The nationwide demonstrations followed several days of mobilisation by Spanish tenants’ organisations.

The immediate political trigger came on Friday, when the Congress of Deputies rejected two housing decrees proposed by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s minority government.

The government had approved a package of emergency housing measures including stronger protection against evictions for vulnerable households, changes affecting property investment companies and measures intended to increase the availability of affordable rental accommodation. A second decree included provisions for the automatic renewal of some rental contracts.

The measures were defeated after the Popular Party, Vox and Junts opposed them. Junts argued that the proposals would not resolve the underlying shortage of housing and risked discouraging property owners from putting homes onto the market.

Housing has become one of Spain’s most politically sensitive domestic issues, particularly in Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia and other cities where rising demand has coincided with limited supply, strong tourism and a large short-term rental market.

The protests have also been shaped by the eviction of 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal from the Madrid flat where she had lived for decades. The case attracted national attention and became a focal point for campaigners demanding stronger protection for tenants.

Spain has already taken measures against short-term tourist accommodation. EU Today reported last year on Spain’s move to block more than 65,000 Airbnb listings that the authorities said did not comply with regulatory requirements.

Barcelona has gone further, announcing plans to end approximately 10,000 tourist-apartment licences by 2028 as the city seeks to return properties to the long-term residential market.

The argument, however, extends beyond holiday rentals.

Spain faces a structural shortage of housing in areas experiencing strong population and employment growth. Tenant organisations favour stronger rent controls, longer contracts and greater restrictions on institutional investors. Property organisations and political opponents of tighter controls argue that excessive intervention can reduce rental supply and discourage construction.

The same debate is increasingly visible across Europe.

Figures published by Eurostat on 1 October showed EU house prices rising by 4.7 per cent in the second quarter of 2026 compared with the same period last year. Rents increased by 3 per cent. Compared with the first quarter, house prices rose by 1.2 per cent and rents by 0.7 per cent.

EU Today recently examined how Berlin’s housing shortage and rapidly rising rents became a central issue in the city’s election campaign, illustrating how affordability has moved up the political agenda across several European capitals.

Brussels has also become more involved. The European Commission’s first European Affordable Housing Plan, presented in December 2025, focuses on increasing supply, mobilising investment, accelerating construction and giving authorities additional scope to address short-term rentals in areas experiencing housing pressure.

EU Today reported when the plan was launched that it included proposals for new action on short-term rentals and housing investment. The Commission has since begun building a European Housing Alliance bringing together governments, cities, regions and housing organisations.

The Commission estimates that house prices across the EU have risen by more than 60 per cent since 2013, while average rents have increased by around 20 per cent. It has nevertheless stressed that most housing policy remains under national, regional and local authority.

Spain therefore represents one of the more acute versions of a wider European problem: how to increase supply while deciding how far governments should regulate rents, tourist accommodation and investment in residential property.

Saturday’s demonstrations show that the issue is no longer confined to housing policy.

For Sánchez, the defeat of the two decrees has exposed once again the difficulty of securing parliamentary majorities for major legislation. For Spain’s opposition parties, the dispute centres increasingly on whether government intervention is helping to expand housing supply or restricting it.

For tenants facing higher rents, the immediate question is whether any new legislation can materially increase the number of homes they can afford.

Across the West, native Europeans are dying out but rental prices continue to go up every year. While the left would like to point the finger at capitalists and greedy landlords, the primary factor driving the housing affordability crisis is mass immigration.

Berlin is a prime example of this trend, as German journalist and author Jens Winter pointed out on X using clear population and housing data.

“Rental prices on the market have more than doubled in Berlin since 2011—plenty of money for corporations. But where is the increased demand coming from? While the native population of the capital has declined by 260,000 since 2011, the number of foreigners and people with a migration background has risen by 650,000 over the same period. That means: Without migration, there would be less demand for housing in Berlin today than in 2011,” he wrote.

In a follow-up post, he wrote that the German “conservative” party is just as guilty as the left.

“The CDU-aligned real estate lobby is raking in big money with migration in Berlin. The Germans have a choice: dying out in the CDU’s multikulti capitalism or in the Left’s multikulti socialism. Understandable response: If we’re going to disappear anyway, why bust our asses for it?” he wrote.

Die CDU-nahe Immobilien-Lobby scheffelt mit Migration in Berlin mächtig Geld. Die Deutschen haben die Wahl: Aussterben im Multikulti-Kapitalismus der CDU oder im Multikulti-Sozialismus der Linken. Verständliche Antwort: Wenn schon verschwinden, warum dafür dann hart arbeiten? https://t.co/GPrTp62SXO

— Jens Winter (@mr_jenswinter) September 26, 2026

While the doubling of rents is real, there is a basic supply and demand reality that the left would like to deny. It is indeed true that predatory property owners, major institutional players, and money printing have played contributing roles to the housing crisis, but no matter how many greedy property owners are involved, if the population of a city falls, rental and housing prices are almost inevitably going to fall.

Mass immigration means that population numbers never fall. Any breathing space for German families to repopulate, have more children, and fill in the gaps left by older generations passing away is immediately filled by hundreds of thousands of foreigners.

The data shows that the population of native Germans fell by 260,000 people. In a system that rejects mass immigration and foreign real estate investors, this could have been a boon for birthrates and increasing home ownership. For one, Germans who already lived in Berlin, and those looking to move to Berlin, would have been more easily able to afford rents and housing due to less competition on the housing market. Secondly, more native Germans would have had a chance to start families — and those who already had families could have afforded an extra child or two — by securing affordable housing.

However, Germany does not reject mass immigration.

Instead, 650,000 foreigners arrived in the same period of time and housing and rental prices soared. The left, however, refuses to do simple math.

There is of course another solution, but it is far more complicated than simply allowing population levels to fall in a country that has never had so many people living in it. Instead of ending mass immigration, left-wing parties, along with the CDU, demand more housing is built.

However, there are myriad reasons why the required housing is not being built, including high construction and material costs, red tape, zoning, and a lack of skilled workers. The same parties have been making the same demands for years now, but construction cannot keep pace with demand in Berlin or other major cities across Germany.

The Left Party may promise to build more, but the reality is that it will not happen. Nothing the left offers will lead to the necessary building. Before Olaf Scholz of the far-left Social Democrats (SPD) won the chancellorship, he promised that his “goal” was to create 400,000 new apartments per year, which would include 100,000 units of social housing, saying, “That’s not witchcraft, we just have to want to do it.” 

Germany buckles under pressure of mass immigration as housing and rental prices soar

It never happened under Scholz and it won’t happen under a left-wing government in Berlin either.

Should more housing even be built?

As Western cities race to replace their native European populations, the question becomes whether life really becomes better in a crowded multicultural city when it means more traffic, longer waiting times at hospitals, crowded classrooms, and imported crime — just to name a few ills.

The newcomers also did not fix the skilled worker shortage that could potentially build all the homes and apartments politicians and lobbyists claim Europe needs. While a certain number of new houses and apartments always need to be built, the question then becomes should Western civilization really be involved in endless building to accommodate millions of foreigners.

On top of all of these questions, the buildings developers managed to build are now in fact uglier than ever, more expensive than ever, and are built more slowly than ever.

In fact, data shows that the time from start to completion for a project is longer than it has been in decades. Again, where are all these young migrants from Africa and the Middle East to fuel a new construction boom with their master artisan and building skills?

The reality is they largely do not exist. Many skilled builders who are immigrants are from neighboring European countries, such as Poland, and they increasingly see fewer reasons to work in Germany.

Poles are moving back to Poland, as Germany becomes a ‘failed state’

The pro-migration left is making housing worse

Winter’s X post is especially relevant given that the Left Party recently won a first place finish in Berlin elections, securing over 25 percent of the vote. Commentators and analysts have contributed the rise of the party in Germany’s capital due a variety of factors, but two major components are the party’s ability to secure the vote of German citizens with a migration background and young voters.

The second factor is Berlin’s housing crisis, which helped drive support from groups like non-voters, the young, and foreigners.

German taxpayer-funded Deutsche Welle, wrote: “That makes sense to 17-year-old Liska, who voted for the socialists: ‘The Left Party did appeal to me, especially because of the social issues — getting prices down, making rents more affordable.’ Rents in Berlin are indeed rising at a massive pace — by some 7% in the last two years alone — and first-time tenants are likely to be the hardest hit. Polls also showed that by far the biggest proportion of Berlin voters — 37% — thought that the Left Party was the most likely to create affordable housing.”

The Left Party and various other left-wing parties have convinced young people that there are easy fixes to the housing crisis. The problem is not relegated to Berlin, as all of Germany has seen tight vacancies as more and more migrants arrive, as Remix News previously reported.

Barely any empty apartments left in Germany as mass migration fuels housing crisis

In the end, the left and its voters are choosing a path where more and more building only leads to overcrowding and environmental degradation.

Mass immigration and higher housing costs hurt birthrates

Numerous studies have shown that immigration has helped drive soaring rental and housing prices across the Western world — not just in Germany. In turn, studies have also shown that soaring housing prices have depressed birthrates, including in countries like the Netherlands, according to the Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI).

Again, the same story is taking place in the Netherlands, with the natural population increase for the Dutch at near zero or negative. Nevertheless, the population rose from about 16.8 million in 2013 to 18.1 million in 2025, with net migration accounting for virtually all of the recent increase.

It must also be remembered that just like in Germany, most of these migrants want to head to the major cities, such as Amsterdam.

Official housing-need forecasts in the Netherlands also attribute a large share of future extra demand, often 45 percent or more of the extra dwellings required, to population growth that is itself 95 percent migration-driven.

Great for landlords, bad for the citizens.

Of course, the Alternative for Germany has tried to tie the housing crisis to mass immigration, and they have successfully made this case to some extent.

WATCH: Mass immigration is fueling the West's housing crisis.

Here's how it's happening in Germany.

In a powerful speech in the German Bundestag, @AfD politician Carolin Bachmann slams the ruling government for allowing 2 million migrants into the country while families… pic.twitter.com/DMEqiV316S

— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) February 15, 2024

The problem is that as more and more of the population becomes foreign, this argument holds less and less sway. Immigration may raise housing prices but if immigration brought a person to a country in the first place, and if more immigration might also enable more and more of their family members and fellow countrymen to arrive, then these voters have every incentive to keep immigration levels high regardless of housing costs.

Germany spent over €17 billion on housing support in 2024, with nearly half going to foreigners

Many of these migrants are not paying for rent anyway. There are millions of foreigners on social welfare, which means not only are they taking housing places of native Germans, but they are being paid to do it. They then often have far higher birthrates than native Germans, even with limited space, which entitles them to larger spaces.

The cycle is self-reinforcing and relentless. That means unless dramatic action is taken against mass immigration, housing and rental prices may never truly come down.

63% of all welfare recipients in Germany have a migration background

The post Europe’s housing crisis is an immigration crisis, as Berlin data confirms appeared first on Remix News.

Production: By Europod, in co-production with Sphera Network.

EUobserver is proud to have an editorial partnership with Europod to co-publish the podcast series “Briefed” hosted by Léa Marchal. The podcast is available on all major platforms.

Find the full transcript below:

Hundreds of people were still camping yesterday at Puerta del Sol in Madrid. They were demanding action on housing, as rents and property prices continue to rise.

Following an outcry triggered by the eviction of an 83-year-old woman from her home, and the mobilization of thousands of people across Spain, the government adopted two housing decrees.

Did they take the protesters’ demands into account?

MariCarmen Abascal had lived in her apartment since the 1950s, having inherited the lease from her parents. But the property was bought by an investment fund, which then challenged the validity of her lease and quadrupled her rent.

Last week, MariCarmen was evicted from her home. The eviction sparked widespread outrage and led hundreds of protesters to camp in central Madrid, calling for action.

Yesterday, she was finally allowed to return home after reaching an agreement with the owners.

Aside from MariCarmen’s case, the demonstrations are largely driven by young people who are fed up with rising rents and property prices, especially in major cities such as Madrid and Barcelona.

In Madrid, property prices have risen by around 87 percent over the past ten years. That’s less than in Portugal or the Netherlands, where prices have increased even more. But it’s still a significant rise, especially as wages have grown much more slowly over the same period.

Rents are taking up a huge share of people’s incomes. In Madrid, they account for almost half of tenants’ net income on average. So, how did the Spanish government respond?

Yesterday, it adopted two housing decree-laws. The first decree would suspend evictions until 2030 and automatically extend existing rental contracts by two years.

It would also introduce tighter rules on seasonal rentals and prevent speculative investment funds from acquiring housing until 2028.

The second decree is more ambitious. It would allow tenants to extend their future rental contracts indefinitely. This is what the tenants’ union has been calling for.

Landlords would no longer be able to end a lease simply because it had reached its expiry date. Tenants who pay their rent and respect their legal obligations could remain in their homes for as long as they wish.

This would also limit rent increases, since rents can only be raised moderately during an existing contract.

So, the government has taken the protesters’ demands into account. But there is still a major obstacle: as our Spanish partner El Salto reports, the tenants’ union fears that this second measure may not pass through Parliament.

That could explain why the government adopted two separate decrees. The first is considered easier to get through Parliament.

Now, what about the EU’s proposals to tackle rising rents? We discussed them earlier this month.

One of the main proposals concerns short-term rentals. The idea is to introduce restrictions, particularly in tourist areas where housing is under strong pressure. By bringing more homes back onto the long-term rental market, the Commission hopes to ease pressure on prices.

But these proposals have not yet been adopted, so we’ll have to wait and see what impact they have. And in any case, more will need to be done at national level.

Even if prices stop rising, they are already so high that many workers can no longer afford to live in major cities.

More social housing is needed, as well as more renovation. Increasing the supply of decent, affordable homes could help ease pressure on rents and property prices.

First published in Deník N.

In Berlin, you can be whoever you want to be – as long as you can afford it. By some estimates, the city is short of 100,000 flats. Economist Alexander Kritikos of the German Institute for Economic Research explains how the housing crisis contributed to support for radical political parties.

Over the past 10 years, rent has risen 75 percent to €15.78 per square metre excluding energy and other services. Germany as a whole is short of around 1.4 million lower and middle-priced homes.

The housing crisis is one manifestation of wider discontent that is also reflected in support for political parties at opposite ends of the spectrum, from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) to the far-left Die Linke (The Left).

Find out:

• Why so few new homes have been built in Berlin.

• Will the Left’s plans to purchase homes from private owners work?

• What lies behind growing support for the AfD?

• How Germany can get back on track with digitisation.

Germany is one of Europe’s richest countries, but it suffers major housing shortages. How come?

The housing crisis is a problem in three or four large cities. Berlin is one of them, and it is a truly major issue here, especially after an influx of tens of thousands of people from within and outside the country.

What happened in 2003?

2003 was a turning point when Berlin became a city of start-ups. Before then, the people were unable to rent out their flats due to an oversupply.

When in the 1990s Berlin was restored as the capital, people expected that many would move here. But the calculations at the time overlooked one thing: the city [West Berlin] had been surrounded by a wall, and its residents could not move to the suburbs.

In the 10 to 15 years following the fall of the Berlin Wall, when rents were at their lowest, more people left the city than arrived. Developments were therefore exactly the opposite of what had been expected. The trend did not stop until 2003, when the last major wave of residents left.

Berlin’s mayor at the time began promoting the slogan that Berlin was “poor but sexy”.

The city began attracting start-ups. It had an excellent environment for their development and outstanding research institutions. From then until today, more people have been arriving in Berlin than leaving it.

It is therefore clear that, from a certain point onwards, we no longer had any additional flats or houses available to offer.

“When you expropriate something, no new homes are built. It does not solve the housing shortage; you merely shift it from one owner to another”

With so many people arriving, why were more homes not being built?

Building new homes became a bureaucratic nightmare. Obtaining all the permits and dealing with administrative matters took a great deal of time.

And construction became exceptionally expensive while politicians regulated rent levels. Many investors concluded that building homes was not worth their while. For them, costs were too high, bureaucracy too complex and income too low.

Doubts over Left’s proposed flat buy-backs

The Left plans to buy back 220,000 flats from corporate landlords. In 2021, 58 percent of Berliners voted in a referendum in favour of expropriation. Now, the Left wants to fulfil this mandate. What do you think?

When you expropriate something, no new homes are built. It does not solve the housing shortage; you merely shift it from one owner to another.

The Left also promise the number of flats will increase, but it will not. It cannot increase in this way.

Historically, Berlin’s housing stock was managed by public institutions, who offered lower rents. And we saw that those who benefited were people with good connections to those allocating the flats.

Whenever demand exceeds supply, other ways of allocating resources emerge, whether through personal connections, under-the-table payments or otherwise.

Germany has the highest number of foreign-born residents in the EU. Does immigration play a role in the housing crisis?

It does, insofar as migrants also come to Berlin. But we must really distinguish between refugees and highly educated people who come here to establish their own businesses. They too are immigrants. So I would not say that migration is the problem. Rather, more people are arriving in Berlin than leaving, and that creates excess demand for housing.

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The Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has continued its downward spiral after suffering significant losses in state elections in Berlin and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania on Sunday, September 20. In addition to coming second to the progressive Die Linke in the German capital, Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s party failed to achieve the 5% needed to enter Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania’s parliament, marking a new low – or, in Merz’s own words – a “disaster.”

The results of the two elections were radically different: in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) won the largest percentage of votes, echoing, in many ways, the recent outcome in Saxony-Anhalt. In Berlin, Die Linke emerged as the winner, claiming a quarter of the vote after a campaign focusing on housing, the cost of living crisis, and public transport.

Read more: Far-right victory in German state elections shocks the center

Part of the local reports note that while the AfD and Die Linke lie on opposite ends of the political spectrum, both gained ground thanks to the perception that they bring the best chance of breaking with the policies implemented by the government coalition between CDU and the Social Democrats (SPD).

These policies – pursuing extensive cuts to the social and welfare system and attacks on labor rights in order to fund a massive rearmament drive – have completely eroded the support for Merz’s conservatives. Despite this administration’s unprecedented unpopularity, the German Chancellor is showing no sign of changing course, stating after Sunday’s election that “reforms must come.”

Die Linke’s Berlin result: reforms must be implemented – but which reforms?

Reforms must be implemented, voters in several German states apparently agree with Merz – just not those envisioned by the CDU. Die Linke’s campaign, led by Elif Eralp, offered an alternative list of policy reforms addressing Berlin’s inhabitants’ most pressing concerns. This meant a focus on accessible housing – including a follow-up on the 2021 referendum where voters backed expropriating the property of private real-estate companies with 3,000 or more units in the city.

Five years ago, over one million people supported the referendum’s idea of socializing the housing pool, yet no action was taken by the local administration. Since then, the housing situation has grown worse, leading to widespread frustration. Die Linke’s campaign recognized the general discontent and promised it would not give up on socialization.

“Die Linke’s successful campaign in Berlin was driven by its strong focus on affordable housing and rent control, which resonated deeply with voters facing massively rising living costs,” Kirsten Schubert, a general practitioner active in the party’s local chapter, told BreakThrough News. “The party integrated large-scale door-to-door campaigning strategy, allowing volunteers to connect personally with hundreds of thousands of residents directly at their doorsteps. By those means, strong social media presence and a huge range of community activities, they successfully mobilized a diverse coalition of non-voters, progressive urban youth, and traditional working-class voters.”

Read more: Berliners win vote to expropriate housing from corporate landlords. What’s next?

Krunoslav Stojaković, a political advisor at the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, says that the election result commits not only Die Linke, but also “the social left and all those who care about a more just society” to work towards achieving socialization of housing. “At this point, there can be no going back […] The people of Berlin have given us this mandate.”

“There will be resistance,” he emphasizes. “Potential coalition partners are only tentatively supportive of Die Linke, and some are already making demands against the socialization of those profiting from the housing crisis as a condition for political cooperation.”

Progressive measures to face opposition from center

The approach adopted in Berlin marked a welcome break from Die Linke’s campaigning in other states. Stojaković pointed out to the portal H-alter that the party’s earlier choices – such as joining coalitions that implemented austerity measures – contributed to a fall in popularity. The recent success offers an opportunity to reclaim lost ground and reshape the party’s approach to fieldwork. But it should not be taken for granted that this will happen.

For now, the party faces talks with potential coalition partners SPD and the Greens. Figures from both parties signaled there are significant misalignments between them and Die Linke. While the SPD does not share the commitment to socialization of housing, the Greens’ Franziska Brantner said the party would not cooperate with “anti-semites from Neukölln.” With this, Brantner indicated that the political mainstream in Germany will persist in pressuring those criticizing Israel – even if this criticism remains timid at best.

Read more: Thousands join Berlin’s Peace Days to support antimilitarism and solidarity

On the other hand, left and progressive parties across Europe recognized in Die Linke’s result an important rupture within the predominating context of the far right gaining electoral ground. From Jean-Luc Mélenchon in France to Slovenia’s Levica, reactions emphasized the significance of shaping grounded and unequivocally left programs. “Politics begins with the daily problems of millions of people,” wrote Peter Mertens, General Secretary of the Workers’ Party of Belgium (PTB-PVDA). “It is not just about talking about tenants and workers, but about organizing them so they can impose change themselves.”

This article was updated on Wednesday, September 23, to incorporate comments from Kirsten Schubert.

In this personal essay at The New Yorker, Anna Holmes writes about growing up in Davis, California, a college town near Sacramento; the financial challenges her mixed-race family faced; and what it means to come from a family without the generational wealth that can make homeownership, and the financial security that comes with it, possible.

It’s hard to hear people who own property grumble about how little money they have. One friend who regularly moans about money has a four-bedroom home on the West Coast and a vacation house in New England. I’m unmoved by the financial lamentations of another friend, who owns a town house in New York with an apartment for a nanny or an in-law. Stuff like this makes me want to scream. Demonstrate some modicum of self-awareness! Read the fucking room! When a friend told me that her parents were going to help her buy a second home, I made a pointed remark that it must be nice to have access to that sort of capital. She conceded the point, graciously, and we moved on.

Westminster is the most unaffordable city for local homebuyers, according to a September 2026 real estate report. While home price growth across the UK slowed to 2% a year, a new study by Everest Mortgages looked at the cities where house prices and mortgage requirements are still too high for their own residents. Westminster makes it the most difficult for residents to buy a home, with locals needing to earn over 3 times more than they do currently. Salaries and mortgage requirements don’t match each other the most in England, as the region takes all top 10 spots.Chichester stands out with the lowest local salaries, and full-time workers there earn only £35.2K annually.

For each of 75+ UK cities, the study focused on two key numbers: the salary local workers would need to afford a home versus what they earn now. The first figure was calculated using the average house price without the deposit (15%) and what lenders usually limit for mortgage applications, taken as 4.5 times the salary. The aimed salary is then compared to the actual median salary in the region, highlighting the affordability gaps in the UK housing market. Here’s how the top 10 most unaffordable housing markets for locals.

In Westminster, residents need to earn over 3 times more than they do now to afford a home. This is the largest difference in the country between real income and what lenders are looking for when approving mortgages, and, in raw numbers, it’s a gap of £108K annually. Right now, Westminster workers take home around £52.6K a year if they’re working full time, but with house prices at £854K, they need to triple their earnings. Chichester Chichester is the second most unaffordable market for residents, with local salaries requiring a 2.3 times increase to match the mortgage conditions. In 2026, workers here earn only £35.2K annually, the lowest median salary in the top 10, but the house prices in Chichester are still higher than in Bath, Bristol, or Brighton and Hove.

To pay off a mortgage on a £430K house, residents need to earn £81.2K, more than double their current paychecks. London In third place is London, where the median earnings of £46.4K still need to be more than doubled (x 2.25) to fit the mortgage payment schedule. The average house in London is actually cheaper than one in Westminster or in St Albans, with a price tag of £554K, but local salaries need to reach at least £104.6K, the third-highest required paycheck on the list. St Albans St Albans follows closely, with a 2.14 times salary increase required. Local workers already make the most on the list, bringing home £57.4K, over £10K more than in London, but these salaries are still not enough for a safe mortgage.

With house prices sitting at £651.4K on average, St Albans homebuyers are looking for a salary of £123K. Oxford Oxford also makes the list of the cities where it’s the hardest to buy a home on local salaries. In 2026, the gap between the actual paychecks and what lenders are looking for is £44.9K, which is already more than a median Oxford salary. Currently, the income for one full-time worker amounts to £43.3K annually, so future homebuyers need to look to double their earnings. A housing expert from Everest Mortgages commented on the study: “Many first-time buyers spend years saving a deposit, only to discover their salary still disqualifies them for a mortgage on the property they've been saving toward. Having a big enough deposit is only half the story, and a stable, sufficiently large income is equally important. In Westminster and Chichester, the deposit hurdle is real, but the income gap is the wall most buyers never get over.”

The European Commission calls it the Affordable Housing Act and says it can “truly bring a change in people’s lives”. But how much will it actually do to make housing more affordable, asks Catherine Feore? 

The tension at the heart of the proposal is that Brussels is making ambitious claims about tackling the housing crisis while simultaneously making clear that it is not imposing new housing policies on governments or cities.

Commission President Ursula von der Leyen says the measure fulfils a promise to tackle housing affordability, describing it as “one step in this direction” and declaring: “Today, we are delivering for all Europeans.” Housing Commissioner Dan Jørgensen went further, saying the Act gives governments and cities tools to “make more affordable homes available”.

Yet the proposed legislation itself is considerably more cautious.
The Commission acknowledges that insufficient housing supply is the structural cause of the affordability crisis. Short-term rentals, second homes and other non-primary uses are not the root problem, although they can exacerbate shortages and push up prices in already constrained markets.

Housing stress test

The Act principally delivers a common legal framework for authorities that choose to intervene.

Central to this is a new EU test for housing stress. An area would normally qualify where an average home costs at least eight years of disposable per-capita income, that ratio has increased over the previous decade, and pressures are unlikely to ease over the next three years. At a ratio of ten or more, the historical deterioration test is dropped. Population dynamics, housing supply and demand must also be assessed.

Authorities could then restrict short-term rentals outside a host’s primary residence or tackle second homes, prolonged vacancy and certain other non-primary uses. But there is no obligation. They must also demonstrate that the activity has significantly harmed housing affordability or availability for at least three years, and any restriction must be targeted, necessary and proportionate. This seems to set a high bar of evidence for most local authorities.

Currently, local authorities must notify the Commission of short-term rental restrictions under the Services Directive. That notification requirement will no longer be required. Cities can use the new framework without seeking prior Commission approval, although measures must be published and remain open to legal challenge. Officials argue this will remove a burdensome procedure and make intervention easier.

But the Commission is equally explicit about what it is not doing. The Act does not regulate rents, harmonise housing policy, give Brussels new housing competences, dictate taxation, inheritance or planning, or require, recommend or encourage authorities to impose restrictions. Housing policy choices “remain national, regional and local”.

Executive Vice-President Teresa Ribera says that when markets fail to provide affordable homes, “public authorities have a responsibility to act”. But the Act does not compel that action; it provides a stronger legal framework if authorities choose to act independently.

Its impact could be real in tourist hotspots where non-primary housing use is demonstrably worsening shortages. But it cannot itself build a home or lower a rent. The question is whether a clearer legal toolbox matches the expectations created by the Commission’s promise to tackle Europe’s housing crisis. When asked to quantify how much of a difference the new provisions could make, the Commission couldn’t give precise figures, saying that it would depend on the measures adopted.

PHOTO CREDIT: Teresa Ribera, Executive Vice-President of the European Commission for a Clean, Just and Competitive Transition, and Dan Jørgensen, European Commissioner for Energy and Housing, give a press conference on the affordable housing Photographer: Jennifer Jacquemart © European Union

America’s elders need more places to live, but even in liberal enclaves that recognize the problem, developers are facing fierce foes: America’s elders. Make it make sense! Charley Locke reports from her hometown of Oakland, California, where boomers are organizing against two proposals that would add 618 market-rate residential units to the city’s senior housing stock:

Many in the crowd had been marching against governmental and corporate overreach for half a century: against the Vietnam draft and the invasion of Iraq; against Wall Street; against police brutality. They’re part of a generational force that’s antiestablishment and suspicious of power. But in this fight, it wasn’t so clear who the establishment was or who had the power. Were these righteous middle-class activists fending off greedy developers who would charge high rents, or were they wealthy seniors prioritizing neighborhood character over ameliorating the housing crisis? Were they once again David, or had they become Goliath?

“Most people don’t get to buy their old homes back, or ever step foot in them again, and that’s okay. But we sure can spend a lifetime trying to re-create them.” In this poignant essay for Dwell, Emilia Petrarca celebrates the work of her late father, the New York City architect John Petrarca, and explores how his influence has shaped her own relationship to home and interior design. Petrarca reflects on the process of finding her own aesthetic while carrying her father’s with her, considering the ways belongings and spaces can hold our memories, legacies, and grief.

When I moved out of my mom’s house and into my first apartment with a roommate at 23, I brought with me a black rug my dad bought in Morocco. After graduating from Carnegie Mellon, he joined the Peace Corps and spent time in Ouarzazate designing government buildings. In a room full of cheap Ikea furniture, it was the only thing that truly felt like a reflection of me. Well, that and a rigid, plastic, yellow outdoor chair I for some reason bought to go with my desk. Looking back at photos now, I see that the choice makes more sense: The chair my dad got me for my room in the Big House was almost the exact same hue.

You don’t have to live in El Cerrito, California, or have ever used Nextdoor, for this essay to resonate. For Oakland Review of Books, Amy Brown recounts buying her first home in the East Bay city and swiftly becoming the villain of her local Nextdoor—after her uncharitable Bluesky posts about the seniors opposing a library tax made their way back to her neighbors. Honest and funny, Brown’s essay explores being locally online—that weird, often uncomfortable place between online and IRL—and shows how (not) to talk to people you’ll run into at the grocery store.

Still, I spent multiple nights lying awake, thinking that everyone in this town must know I’m a bitch now. My son is supposed to start TK at the public school in the fall. What if his classmates’ parents use Nextdoor? What if the nice lady across the street who organizes a monthly dinner for our block uses Nextdoor? What if my neighbor already told everyone that the woman who moved into the house on the corner is an asshole? Does everyone I see on the street think I’m an asshole? Can they tell I don’t belong here? Do I have to go crawling back to my hometown and get a job at the car seat manufacturing plant?

Brussels (enr) – Local and regional leaders raised concerns that the next multiannual EU budget risks undermining investment in affordable homes needed to alleviate Europe’s deepening housing crisis.

“Europe’s housing challenge is not simply about building more housing units,” said Kata Tüttő, President of the European Committee of the Regions (CoR), an EU advisory body home to democratically elected regional and local representatives from all 27 Member States.  

At a gathering in Brussels on Thursday, they demanded the EU “move from political ambition to concrete investment and delivery,” arguing that failing to invest now will only put affordable housing further out of reach for millions of Europeans.

As negotiations over the EU’s next long-term financial framework gather pace, cities and regions fear that affordable housing could become a casualty of competing spending priorities as several EU member states seek to cut the European Commission’s proposed €2 trillion budget for ‌2028-2034.

Tüttő called on the European Investment Bank (EIB), the EU’s lending arm, to “mobilise the scale of investment” that cities and regions need to “make communities liveable” by providing essential infrastructure. She cited public transport, as well as energy and water infrastructure, as key examples.

Italian MEP Irene Tinagli, Chair of the European Parliament’s Special Committee on the Housing Crisis (HOUS), said addressing the housing crisis “requires investment, better coordination across all levels of government and a shared commitment from European institutions, Member States, regions and cities”.

The CoR and EIB on Thursday agreed on closer cooperation in key areas including social infrastructure, housing, and energy. The European Investment Bank’s president, Nadia Calviño, said “investing into resilient cities and regions, into cohesion and housing” was a strategic priority.

According to EIB figures, the world’s largest multilateral development bank provided a record €5 billion in financing for housing projects across Europe in 2025. The EIB is targeting an increase to €6 billion this year, Calviño confirmed.

The investments are a contribution to the European Commission’s Affordable Housing Plan, which was launched in December and aims to boost housing supply, mobilise public and private investment, and support Member States and regions in expanding social and affordable housing.

According to the Commission’s estimates, however, the EU needs to build 2 million homes each year to meet current demand, which amounts to an investment of approximately €153 billion per year.

This story was produced by the European Newsroom (enr) in cooperation with the European Committee of the Regions (CoR). The editorial responsibility lies with the enr.