FOREIGN buyers in Spain should keep an eye on a new housing proposal from Brussels, not because the EU is about to ban second homes, but because it could make it easier for regional authorities to interfere in the housing market.

The European Commission has proposed an Affordable Housing Act intended to create a common framework for dealing with what it calls ‘housing stress’. 

Housing policy would remain largely in the hands of national governments, but the new rules would give regional and local powers options to intervene in areas where housing is deemed unaffordable or in short supply.

That is potentially significant because EU rules protecting the single market and free movement of capital have acted as a constraint on measures that discriminate against outsiders. 

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The proposed framework could give local authorities more room to restrict what Brussels calls the ‘non-primary use’ of housing, including second homes, tourist rentals and empty properties.

Nothing has changed yet.

This is only a proposal, and any measures would have to be evidence-based, targeted, necessary and proportionate. 

Brussels insists authorities would have to demonstrate that second homes or tourist rentals are contributing to local housing problems before taking action.

If it does become law, however, I suspect the biggest impact in Spain will be local rather than national.

Different parts of the country have very different attitudes towards housing-market intervention.

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Catalunya has been enthusiastic about controls on rents and tourist accommodation, and Barcelona mayor Jaume Collboni has welcomed the European initiative. 

Other regions, including Andalucia and Valencia, have generally shown less enthusiasm for this sort of intervention.

So we could end up with an increasingly fragmented Spanish housing market in which owning or buying a second home is treated very differently depending on where the property happens to be.

That might not be entirely a bad thing.

Spain could become something of a laboratory for housing policy, with interventionist regions trying one approach while others leave the market alone. 

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Over time we might get some useful evidence about which policies actually improve housing affordability and which merely produce unintended consequences.

The EC itself acknowledges that restricting second homes and other non-primary uses cannot solve the underlying housing shortage, which ultimately comes down to an imbalance between supply and demand.

Its proposals also call for faster planning and permitting to increase supply. 

So despite the sensationalist way this has been reported, Brussels isn’t planning to ban second-home buyers, just give local politicians more power to do it.

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