President Pedro Sánchez has announced that the Council of Ministers will address at its meeting this Tuesday the elimination of the golden visa for foreigners who invest more than 500,000 euros in housing.
During an event on housing in Seville, Sánchez explained that the Council of Ministers will study a report presented by the Minister for Housing and the Urban Agenda, Isabel Rodríguez, to modify the Law approved by the PP Government in 2013 "which allows a residence visa to be obtained if one invests in housing" in Spain.
"We are going to initiate the procedure to eliminate the granting of the so-called 'golden Visa', which allows access to residence when investing more than half a million euros in real estate," said Sánchez, who pointed out that this is intended to "guarantee that housing is a right and not merely a speculative business".
He explained that around 94% of visas for investors are linked to real estate investments (around 10,000 authorisations), and cities such as Barcelona, Madrid, Malaga, Alicante, Palma and Valenciaare themost in demand for this type of operation and, furthermore, coincide in being the "most stressed" areas.
Sánchez has guaranteed that the government's priority in this legislature is to guarantee access to affordable housing, in order to respond to the needs of citizens, and that no citizen should have to spend more than 30% of their income to have a decent, adequate and quality home. To this end, he said, priority is being given to the social function of housing.
Colin RitchieThis is not about €500,000 villas or employment of locals. The Golden Visa scheme didn’t stipulate that the half million euros should be spent just on one property. This has led to people, particularly from China, buying up several low cost apartments in working class areas then speculating and thus driving up the prices of other homes in the area. I don’t know whether this has been the case in the Balearics but it certainly has in Madrid and Barcelona.
I'm surprised it took so long to make this change. This was originally a desperate measure fir the Spanish government to be seen to be doing something for the construction / real estate sector after the armageddon that the GFC was for these sectors in Spain.
This measure never really helped, so amazing it took them 15 years to cancel it.
The emphasis is going to be on affordable housing for native citizens. They are not going to be in the market for €500,000 villas, so restricting access for those with such homes will not help the stated cause in the slightest. Indeed, it will dter those with expensive homes, and result in a reduction in employment of locals and in the spend of these wealthy people.
Skewed thinking, in my opinion.
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Colin RitchieThis is not about €500,000 villas or employment of locals. The Golden Visa scheme didn’t stipulate that the half million euros should be spent just on one property. This has led to people, particularly from China, buying up several low cost apartments in working class areas then speculating and thus driving up the prices of other homes in the area. I don’t know whether this has been the case in the Balearics but it certainly has in Madrid and Barcelona.
I'm surprised it took so long to make this change. This was originally a desperate measure fir the Spanish government to be seen to be doing something for the construction / real estate sector after the armageddon that the GFC was for these sectors in Spain. This measure never really helped, so amazing it took them 15 years to cancel it.
The emphasis is going to be on affordable housing for native citizens. They are not going to be in the market for €500,000 villas, so restricting access for those with such homes will not help the stated cause in the slightest. Indeed, it will dter those with expensive homes, and result in a reduction in employment of locals and in the spend of these wealthy people. Skewed thinking, in my opinion.
If you obtained a visa through this scheme, will renewals be prevented or is ‘ a visa a visa’ once given?
The estate agents are going to love this..... Not.