The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, has announced that tomorrow Tuesday the Council of Ministers will study a report presented by the Minister of Housing and Urban Agenda, Isabel Rodríguez, proposing the procedure to eliminate the granting of the “Golden Visa” to foreigners investing in housing, as stated by the head of the Executive himself at an event held in Dos Hermanas, Seville.
The “Golden Visa” is a modality of access to a visa or Spanish residence permit approved by the PP government of Mariano Rajoy in 2013 and which, at the time, was presented as an attractive way to attract international investments and talent. To obtain this visa, the main requirement was to invest more than half a million euros in real estate, although it also accepts investment in financial assets (two million euros in Spanish public debt securities, one million in shares or social participations of Spanish companies, one million in investment funds, or one million in bank deposits in Spanish financial entities). These modalities will not disappear, explain government sources.
But more than a decade later, the Government has detected that 94% of the visas for investors in this modality are linked only to investors in the real estate sector, reaching up to 10,000 authorizations.
According to data from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs provided to Transparency International, in the last ten years Spain has granted 2,712 visas to investors from China, of which 99.33% were issued for the acquisition of real estate. 1,159 citizens of Russia were granted the same permit, of which 94.65% were issued for their investment in housing. They are followed by Iranian, American, and British investors.
According to information provided by the Government, cities such as Barcelona, Madrid, Malaga, Alicante, Palma, and Valencia are the ones with the highest demand for this type of visa and at the same time are those with more areas of tension in housing prices.
“The Government’s priority in this term is to guarantee access to affordable housing, to respond to citizens, so that no citizen has to allocate more than 30% of their income to have a dignified, adequate, and quality home. And for this, we are giving priority to the social function of housing.”
In recent months, various reports from the real estate sector have noted that in large cities such as those mentioned, the escalation of housing prices coincides with a growing trend to pay for them in cash, without resorting to credit, as well as the nationality of buyers and their high standard of living. In the case of Barcelona, Americans are the ones who demand luxury homes the most.
In Madrid, the presence of Venezuelans has skyrocketed as political tensions have escalated in their country of origin, to the point that they are already talking about the “little Caracas” to refer to the most expensive area of the Salamanca neighborhood near El Retiro Park.
Not all experts link this operation of the real estate market to the incentive of the Golden Visa, although for the vast majority, it is.
Source: lavanguardia.com