The increase in housing rental prices in the Metropolitan Area of Guadalajara responds to a combination of economic, urban and social factors, including gentrification, real estate speculation and the increase in the cost of construction materials, explained Héctor Iván del Toro Ríos, research professor at the Department of Economics at CUCEA.
According to the specialist, although the official discourse does not always recognize it, the phenomenon of gentrification has substantially modified urban dynamics and housing market prices.
Gentrification is defined by UN-Habitat as a process that occurs when urban renewal is accompanied by a flow of middle or upper class people who usually displace the original residents due to rising prices in the area.
The change towards vertical developments has led to the increase in buildings with high costs and reduced spaces, which has displaced middle and lower sectors to the peripheries.
This movement, indicated Del Toro, is combined with a sustained demand for housing and a limited supply, which puts upward pressure on prices for both sale and rent.
The academic also highlighted that the costs of construction inputs, such as steel, cement and rebar, have increased constantly, making new projects more expensive.
This situation has led many families to choose to purchase already built houses instead of building on their own, due to the permits and expenses involved in a housing project from scratch.
Added to this is the inflationary impact and the increase in cadastral letters, which affects property taxes and, consequently, sales or rental prices.
Del Toro Ríos warned that the owners pass these increases on to the tenants, further affecting the ability to access housing.
In this context, approximately a quarter of the metropolitan population earns only the minimum wage, which aggravates the problem of access to decent housing.
The CUCEA researcher considered that, to reverse the trend, authorities must promote regulatory policies that control speculation and restrict the indiscriminate granting of construction permits in saturated areas.
He also raised the need to reactivate under-used housing areas, such as some areas of Tlajomulco, in order to bring lower-income families closer to their workplaces and reduce daily trips.
Likewise, he recommended strengthening the financial education of the population to encourage savings and better family economic planning, which would facilitate the long-term purchase or improvement of one’s own homes.
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