Affordable housing investment is in the spotlight of some of the main Spanish players, who participated in MIPIM, the major international trade fair held in Cannes from March 14 to 17. To position affordable housing investment at the center of the debate, Meridiana, the official Spanish representative of the fair, and the Architects and Quantity Surveyors Association of Madrid (COAAM) organized the MIPIM MeetUp event in which leading real estate professionals analyzed the situation of affordable housing and how to increase its attractiveness to foreign capital by strengthening public-private partnerships.
The event began with the inauguration of Jesús Paños, president of the Association. Antonio Gil Machado, member of the RICS Board and director of the Iberinmo publishing group, moderated the first panel discussion, with the participation of Roger Pla, partner at Roca Junyent; Henry Gallego, CEO of Ktesios Socimi; Sandra Daza, managing director of Gesvalt; and Alejandro Berm.dez, co-founder and CEO of Atlas Real Estate.
Gil opened the roundtable by stressing that the real estate and construction sector must work to find a balance between supply and demand that meets the needs of a society in which people have difficulty accessing housing. The round table began by discussing the role of public-private collaboration in the affordable housing segment. In this regard, the professionals agreed that in Spain there is an imbalance between the existing supply of affordable housing and the high demand of the population. This can be solved through public-private collaboration.
In this sense, it has been demanded that the Public Administrations facilitate private activity with regulations contemplated in the long term, which do not change constantly and do not over-regulate, a fact that creates insecurity for investment capital.
In addition, it has been highlighted that affordable housing provides opportunities for real estate players to look for various alternatives to attract investment activity, such as reconverting assets beyond residential, housing rehabilitation or focusing on affordable housing for rent, such as Build to Rent.
Another of the conclusions is that public administrations should facilitate the granting of land to increase the supply of affordable housing and extend its term so that the real estate sector can make the investment profitable.
In addition to the representatives of the private sector, the MIPIM MeetUP event was attended by SEPES and ICEX. Javier González Ramiro, Production Director of SEPES, pointed out that they are working to become an instrument for territorial rebalancing, being the first public land operator.
In this sense, he pointed out the challenges to be overcome in the future, such as sustainability and the improvement of resources, coordinating the different administrations to speed up actions and acting on stressed markets that have a high rate of effort to access housing. In short, he pointed out the need to work "to reactivate the economy and facilitate real estate actions".
For his part, Javier Yraola, project management director at Invest in Spain-ICEX, pointed out that MIPIM is a great opportunity to attract foreign investment. For this reason, they will share a stand in the Spanish Pavilion at MIPIM with SEPES, in order to promote and offer a wider range of segments in the real estate sector. "We have a very transversal vision and we will be at MIPIM because we are interested in interacting with large foreign funds, promoters and developers that complement the Spanish ecosystem."
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