from Hacker News

Ibiza locals living in cars as party island sees rents soar

by AlgoRitmo on 4/7/24, 12:49 AM with 96 comments

• by franciscop on 4/7/24, 2:21 AM

  This article is leaving a lot out IMHO. I'm from Spain and I've had friends and family working and living in Ibiza. It is a "financial paradise" to work because you make a crazy amount of money in very little time, if you can stand the drunken/drugged culture. Both "peninsula" (mainland) people and locals go work there in summer to make a little fortune. It is known that many locals work OR rent out the 2-3 summer months and with that they have enough to live for the rest of the year.

  While it's true that summer rent is very expensive, people who work there can definitely pay it, but then you would not save THAT much, so people find their way into cheaper accommodations, whatever that means. So while I don't know the personal story of the interviewee, it's definitely not because a lack of jobs or low pay (a problem that DOES plague most of the country).

  For hacker news, imagine if this article was about the "poor Google employee living in a van and cannot afford rent", you'd laugh at its face.

• by Dibby053 on 4/7/24, 2:26 AM

  There is a significant number of empty houses in Ibiza because people and especially large landowners don't want to rent them because if the tenants can't pay and refuse to leave it can be hard to kick them out. Lack of renting options drives the property prices up, so there is no pressure to sell, and makes renting even more risky. It's a vicious cycle.

• by tayo42 on 4/7/24, 1:29 AM

  Is there any where in the world that's not feeling pain from housing? I'm pretty sure the entire world is struggling. Peppe I know across the US can't make housing work. Idk how I can realistically purchase a house. I was just in Europe talking with people who brought up how hard it is to buy a home.

  I think each little area focuses on some red herring. Transplants, tech workers, digital nomads, foriegn investors, airbnb, but can those really be the same problem everywhere in the world? Idk seems like something else is going on.

• by teruakohatu on 4/7/24, 2:21 AM

  In New Zealand we have the same problem, in sub-zero temperatures, in our alpine party capital Queenstown which is popular with international movie stars and musicians [1]. The house prices and rents are crazy high, but the tourism sector "needs" (wants) young low wage workers. You would think an equilibrium would be reached where the tourism sector / luxury housing size is limited, but it has not yet.

  [1] https://www.odt.co.nz/regions/queenstown/queenstown-housing-...

• by andrewstuart on 4/7/24, 1:49 AM

  Australia is heading this direction too.

  The government is obsessed with obtaining economic growth via unrestrained population growth.

  There's simply not enough houses to increase the population of Australia by 1 million in 18 months and keep adding 2,000 population per day into the future.

  People say "this won't end well". It's already ended badly and getting worse.

  And the government - mostly landlord owning multi house portfolios - have zero interest in fixing it.

• by spanktheuser on 4/7/24, 1:46 AM

  The solution to being priced out a market is impoverish the island until is homes are affordable again. A general strike should do the trick.

• by aorloff on 4/7/24, 3:24 AM

  Every tourist island is having this problem.

• by somewhereoutth on 4/7/24, 1:59 AM

  When wealth becomes more unequal (across the globe), of course the rich will want to vacation more often, leaving their homes empty, while the poor will have to live in cars/tents in order to make way.

  Either fix strictly monetary inequality, or make sure the wealth (housing etc) is spread around more equally regardless of how much money is in someones's bank account. This needs to happen right now.

• by greybox on 4/7/24, 1:37 PM

  I live in Iceland, and the exact same thing is happening here. If fact it's worse here.