The confinement forced millions of people to shut themselves up in their homes for weeks and turn them into a multifaceted space: office, school, playground or improvised cinema. The lack of freedom became for many families an opportunity to give a radical turn to the home, betting on reform certain rooms to adapt them to the new times of pandemic. A need that was added to a lack, caused by the economic crisis, with the Temporary Employment Regulation Files (ERTE) on the agenda and the risk that in 2021 many of them will become a real dismissal and without work. behind. Faced with this uncertainty, many canaries choose to improve their current homes and leave the purchase of a new one for later.
Andimac, employers’ association of the reform sector, presented a report in July that stated that six out of ten Spanish homes were willing to carry out reforms after confinement. With almost all activities stopped due to the state of alarm, there were falls in the sector of 35% in March –the economic and citizen closure was declared in the middle of the month– and up to 75% in April. A decline that came to a halt in May, when it was reduced to 10% as restrictions began to be lifted, and turned into an 8% rise in June.
This increase in reforms is in contrast to the decrease in mortgages, which fell by 42% in October compared to the same month of 2019 in the Canary Islands, remaining at 800, according to data published this Tuesday by the National Institute of Statistics (INE). The Archipelago recorded the largest year-on-year decrease in the entire country, practically doubling the next highest decreases, registered in La Comunidad Foral de Navarra (-21.7%) and Catalonia (-21.1%).
“There are people who were thinking of moving, but decide that it is better to use the money that was going to invest in the purchase of the new house to improve the current one, instead of getting into a mortgage and an important investment within a future context uncertain ”, explains the architect Ricardo García, who recalls that renovating the habitual residence is“ much cheaper than giving a ticket ”.
García is part, along with two companions, of the Family Architects study, which is mainly dedicated to housing reform and was born in 2011, at the worst moment of the previous crisis. It is precisely in these periods of recession when small works at home increase –they have a full schedule–, something very common in Argentina, where the method used in this study is used, that of analyzing directly with families what is the they want to do with their home. “It is about making a tailor-made suit, so, first, we meet with the family before seeing the house, to see what they need and how we can help them,” he explains.
This architect indicates that there are many who dream of having a larger home but that, in reality, what happens is that the houses are not well used, because they have many wasted spaces, very long corridors or rooms that are not well used . “By adapting the house, those who thought they needed another house, see that they can make better use of the square meters of the one they already have.”
Changes from confinement
The pandemic and the obligation to lock up at home to avoid the spread of the virus has marked a series of changes that many citizens must make to adapt to the way of life marked by the coronavirus, which causes the reforms to be specific to this crisis. Citizens are demanding a workspace, improving children’s rooms and kitchens, and sprucing up patios. Furthermore, as they spend more time at home, they start to tidy up and realize that they need storage spaces ”, explains García, who recalls that Shortly after the confinement began, they had several jobs that they had to do online, with computer tools that allowed them to do it remotely.
Although it is very difficult to quantify how many renovations have taken place in the Islands –because it is a minor work that does not need a visa or a license, as it does with the major and new work–, from the Official College of Architects of Gran Canaria (Coagc) do have references on its increase and, in fact, its dean, Vicente Boissier, has made several presentations on this matter. During the previous crisis, when new houses stopped being built, people chose to renovate their house. But between 2017 and 2018 the trend began to change again, construction reactivated and citizens began to buy again, which raised the price of brick again. But the Covid once again stopped these transactions.
The health crisis has altered many aspects, not only the economic one, but also the conception of the home itself, explains Boissier, who recalls that before the home was, for many people, “practically a place of passage where they went to eat or eat. sleep, while work, leisure and vacations were carried out ”. However, in recent months all these activities have had to be carried out within four walls. “The house has become a space where one must entertain, rest, work and spend time with the family”, explains the dean of the Gran Canaria architects. The needs in the interior of the house have varied and now we want to improve the experience at home.
With a rampant economic crisis and hundreds of thousands of jobs at risk, the possibility of buying a new home is parked in favor of improving the existing one. “It is like a perfect storm, because changes do not happen for a single reason, but several aspects come together and, in the end, people consider having a house as good and what they do is adapt it to new living conditions,” he says Boissier.
The mirage of reforms
Despite this crisis, the Official College of Architects of Gran Canaria has seen an upturn in billing for visas in a new building, when professionals expected a decrease. “These are projects that began in 2018 and 2019 and have now obtained the license and the execution project has been drawn up, but they came from previous years.” Boissier estimates that there are more than a thousand new homes on the island, but he does not venture to say that these are going to be sold, not even if all the works are going to start, even if the execution project has been drawn up. “There are many developments that have 60% sold, but everything will depend on the conditions given by the banks when granting mortgage loans”, analyzes the architect from Gran Canaria.
Pessimism haunts the words of the president of the Association of Builders and Promoters of the province of Las Palmas (AECP), Salud Gil, who recalls that “Residential housing visas have suffered a year-on-year decline from January to September 60.9%, that is, they have been drastically reduced and comprehensive rehabilitation has dropped by 25% ”. For Gil, speaking of reforms as an economic boost is “a mirage, because a comprehensive change of a home does not have the same substance as the retail of reforms, those who go to a DIY store and do very small projects fixing a bathroom or a terrace, it is something testimonial regarding the real activity ”.
The president of AECP insists that “reforming the bathroom is not going to create jobs, since it will surely be an underground economy. It does not suppose food for companies, although it can benefit the self-employed ”, acknowledges Gil, for whom the heart of the matter lies in the implementation of the Housing Plan, which has a complementary plan that has been worked on with Viviendas Sociales de Canarias, SA (Visocan) and that will be activated on the fly, through which the green light will be given to the renovation bids for thousands of homes. In addition, developers and builders are waiting for the Canarian Parliament to validate, on the 26th, the decree-law so that the Housing Plan, where there is a large rehabilitation activity, begins in a simplified way.
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