Ourense has become the only Galician city in which the number of empty houses has increased over the past 10 years. According to this indicator, it has already overtaken the cities of Vigo and La Coruna, despite the fact that they are three times larger in population. This all obviously complicates the situation on the local market both in the rental and home purchase segments.
According to the annual report of the Galician Federation of Real Estate Companies (Fegein), today there are more than 16,550 empty houses in Ourense. This is almost 2,000 more than it was 10 years ago. For comparison, there are slightly more than 13,180 such houses in Vigo, and 15,250 in La Coruna.
The president of Fegein, Benito Iglesias, notes that the Casco Vello district is the anti-record holder in terms of population in Ourense. He became the leader of the seven districts of the city with the highest number of vacant housing. Only 5.6% of all its residential premises are inhabited at the moment and this causes enormous concern among experts and market participants. At the same time, the situation with empty housing is especially painful for Ourense, since 95.23% of her entire real estate fund is residential.
Other data cited by Fegein also does not give hope for an improvement in the situation in the province. Lorenza has become a region of the country (approx. at the provincial level), which has sold the smallest number of new homes on the market over the past year. At the same time, the number of initiated and completed new development projects also turned out to be the lowest in Galicia. In total, the housing stock of Ourense is about 248,800 houses.
In the province as a whole, 24.01% of houses are empty — another record figure among the provinces and provincial capitals of Spain. The national average is 13.7%. It is not easier in the municipalities of the province, especially in cities with a population of less than 10,000 people. At the same time, the pandemic did not contribute to the restoration of the provincial regions of Arensa, although other regions of Spain have significantly benefited from the migration formed in the last two years from large cities to the interior of the country.