BARCELONA Reuters - A teacher who has become a symbol of Spain's housing crisis has won a temporary stay of eviction from his rented Barcelona apartment after protests by residents against gentrification and over-tourism in the country's second city.
Josep Torrent, 49, who has lived in the same apartment for more than two decades, was among tenants who were told their rental contracts would not be renewed after private investors Lioness Investments acquired the Art Nouveau Casa Orsola building in His case illustrates the rental and housing crisis affecting Barcelona and wider Spain, an increasingly serious problem for the socialist-led government of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and his fragile minority government.
Spain is struggling to balance its dependence on tourism with citizens' concerns over unaffordably high rents due to gentrification and landlords seeking more lucrative tourist rentals, especially in urban and coastal areas. There is also a historic under-supply of housing, with just 90, new houses and apartments built a year amid a surge in migration and record levels of tourism adding to locals starting their own households. Torrent's eviction was postponed until Feb.
Defend Casa Orsola. Earlier in the week, he told El Pais newspaper he had continued to pay his rent every month "even when the landlord didn't want to collect. Lioness Investments told Reuters it was not an investment fund but a limited partnership. In a statement, it added that landlords face legal insecurity, aggravated by slow legal proceedings, which makes it easier for tenants to refuse to leave their homes when their contracts expire. Mayte Jove, an year-old local resident, told Reuters that tourist apartments were crowding out locals.
A man who resides in a breathtaking top-floor abode inside a former police station's radio room has left the internet stunned with a tour of the space. Known as Elk Mountain Lodge, the picturesque property includes a 16,square-foot main home, multiple guest cabins and cross-country ski trails. A California property that Gloria Vanderbilt lived in when her daughter, also named Gloria, was a teenager, is listed first time in 70 years. Many of the properties are vacant, but some are in prime locations.
