The House as a Business: Technology, Rent, and the Future of Housing

Before this technology existed, a landlord in Manchester setting their rent had incomplete information.

They knew roughly what the flat next door was going for.

With algorithmic tools, they're essentially plugged into a city-wide or even country-wide pricing network.

En Europa tenemos versiones de esto también.

In Europe we have versions of this too.

Empresas como Spotahome o Idealista acumulan enormes cantidades de datos sobre el mercado del alquiler.

Companies like Spotahome or Idealista accumulate enormous amounts of data about the rental market.

No todos son tan agresivos como RealPage, pero el efecto de concentrar información en manos de plataformas privadas es el mismo: los propietarios tienen más poder y más visibilidad que los inquilinos.

Not all of them are as aggressive as RealPage, but the effect of concentrating information in the hands of private platforms is the same: landlords have more power and more visibility than tenants.

And then there's the other side of the technology story, which is who is actually buying the housing in the first place.

Because the landlord in Manchester might not be a person anymore.

Exacto.

Exactly.

Los fondos de inversión inmobiliaria, los REITs, los grandes fondos de capital privado como Blackstone: han comprado cientos de miles de viviendas en todo el mundo en los últimos quince años.

Real estate investment funds, REITs, large private equity funds like Blackstone: they've bought hundreds of thousands of homes across the world in the last fifteen years.

Y ellos sí tienen acceso a tecnología de análisis de datos que un pequeño propietario no puede ni soñar.

And they do have access to data analysis technology that a small landlord can't even dream of.

I reported from Buenos Aires in the late nineties, and even then you could feel the early signs of this.

Hice reportajes desde Buenos Aires a finales de los noventa, y ya entonces se podían sentir los primeros signos de esto.

But what accelerated it was really 2008.

Pero lo que lo aceleró fue realmente 2008.

When the financial crisis hit and housing prices crashed in places like Spain, the United States, Ireland, that was when the big funds moved in at scale.

Cuando la crisis financiera golpeó y los precios de la vivienda se derrumbaron en lugares como España, Estados Unidos e Irlanda, fue entonces cuando los grandes fondos entraron en masa.

They bought distressed properties by the thousands.

Compraron propiedades en dificultades por miles.

En España fue brutal.

In Spain it was brutal.

Hay ciudades donde Blackstone llegó a ser el mayor propietario de viviendas de alquiler del país.

There are cities where Blackstone became the largest rental housing owner in the country.

Compraron carteras enteras de pisos a precios de crisis y luego, cuando el mercado se recuperó, subieron los alquileres de forma agresiva.

They bought entire portfolios of flats at crisis prices and then, when the market recovered, raised rents aggressively.

La gente que vivía en esos pisos desde hacía años de repente tenía un fondo de inversión de Nueva York como casero.

People who had been living in those flats for years suddenly had a New York investment fund as their landlord.

And the technology piece of that is that these funds can operate at a scale that requires automation.

You can't manage fifty thousand apartments across three countries with a human being checking each one.

You need software.

You need algorithms to flag maintenance issues, process payments, and, yes, set rents.

Y ahí está el problema más profundo.

And that's the deeper problem.

Cuando el casero es un algoritmo, no hay nadie con quien hablar cuando el calentador se rompe, no hay nadie que entienda que este mes no puedes pagar porque has perdido el trabajo.

When the landlord is an algorithm, there's nobody to talk to when the boiler breaks down, there's nobody who understands that this month you can't pay because you've lost your job.

El sistema está optimizado para la eficiencia del inversor, no para la realidad de la vida humana.

The system is optimized for investor efficiency, not for the reality of human life.

There's also the surveillance angle.

And this surprised me when I started reading into it.

Smart home technology in rental properties, internet-connected locks, cameras in lobbies, noise sensors, these are increasingly standard in large managed rental buildings.

Esto es un tema que se discute mucho en el sector.

This is a topic that's discussed a lot in the industry.

Las empresas dicen que los sensores de ruido, por ejemplo, protegen a los vecinos de las fiestas.

Companies say that noise sensors, for example, protect neighbors from parties.

Pero también crean un registro permanente del comportamiento del inquilino.

But they also create a permanent record of tenant behavior.

¿Cuándo entra y sale?

When do they come and go?

¿Con quién?

With whom?

¿Cuánto ruido hace?

How much noise do they make?

Esos datos tienen valor, y es ingenuo pensar que las empresas no los usan.

That data has value, and it's naive to think companies don't use it.

I spent four years covering security and surveillance in the Middle East and Central Asia, and the technology that was considered extreme government overreach in 2005 is now routinely deployed by private landlords in Western cities.

The arc of surveillance is long, but it bends toward your apartment.

Es una buena frase.

That's a good line.

Y es verdad.

And it's true.

En Europa tenemos el RGPD, el Reglamento General de Protección de Datos, que en teoría limita lo que las empresas pueden hacer con estos datos.

In Europe we have the GDPR, the General Data Protection Regulation, which in theory limits what companies can do with this data.

Pero la aplicación es irregular, y muchas de estas empresas son estadounidenses, así que la cuestión de qué leyes se aplican es complicada.

But enforcement is uneven, and many of these companies are American, so the question of which laws apply is complicated.

Which brings us back to the UK law.

Because the interesting question isn't just what it bans.

It's whether legislation can actually keep pace with how fast the technology is evolving.

And I'm honestly not sure the answer is yes.

Esa es la tensión central de la regulación tecnológica en general.

That's the central tension of technology regulation in general.

No solo en el mercado del alquiler.

Not just in the rental market.

Las leyes se escriben para el presente, pero la tecnología que intentan regular ya va un paso por delante.

Laws are written for the present, but the technology they're trying to regulate is already one step ahead.

La ley británica prohíbe los desahucios sin causa, pero no dice nada sobre los algoritmos que deciden quién puede alquilar en primer lugar.

The British law bans no-fault evictions, but it says nothing about the algorithms that decide who can rent in the first place.

Explain that.

Who can rent in the first place.

Muchas plataformas de alquiler usan sistemas automáticos de evaluación de inquilinos.

Many rental platforms use automated tenant screening systems.

Analizan el historial crediticio, los ingresos, el empleo, y producen una puntuación.

They analyze credit history, income, employment, and produce a score.

Si tu puntuación no supera el umbral, directamente no te consideran.

If your score doesn't clear the threshold, you're simply not considered.

El problema es que estos sistemas pueden perpetuar discriminaciones existentes, porque están entrenados con datos históricos que ya contienen sesgos.

The problem is that these systems can perpetuate existing discrimination, because they're trained on historical data that already contains biases.

So you can pass a law banning discrimination against benefit recipients, which the UK law does, and then have an algorithm quietly screen them out at the application stage before a human being ever looks at the file.

The discrimination becomes invisible.

Exactamente.

Exactly.

Y esto conecta con algo más amplio: la vivienda se ha convertido en el lugar donde todos los problemas de la sociedad digital convergen.

And this connects to something broader: housing has become the place where all the problems of the digital society converge.

La desigualdad, la vigilancia, el sesgo algorítmico, la concentración del poder económico en pocas manos.

Inequality, surveillance, algorithmic bias, the concentration of economic power in few hands.

Un piso de alquiler en Londres o en Madrid es, en cierto sentido, un microcosmos de todos esos conflictos.

A rental flat in London or Madrid is, in a certain sense, a microcosm of all those conflicts.

Let me put a historical frame on this, because I think it helps.

In the early twentieth century, when industrial technology transformed the workplace, it took decades for labor law to catch up.

You had factory machinery that could maim workers faster than any individual employer could decide to, because the machine just ran.

The legal frameworks protecting workers came later, and they came because of sustained political pressure.

Es un buen paralelismo.

It's a good parallel.

Y la diferencia es que los algoritmos del siglo XXI son mucho menos visibles que una máquina de fábrica.

And the difference is that twenty-first-century algorithms are far less visible than a factory machine.

Cuando un trabajador perdía un brazo en una fábrica textil, era evidente quién era responsable.

When a worker lost an arm in a textile factory, it was obvious who was responsible.

Cuando un algoritmo te rechaza como inquilino o sube tu alquiler un treinta por ciento, la cadena de responsabilidad es mucho más difícil de seguir.

When an algorithm rejects you as a tenant or raises your rent by thirty percent, the chain of responsibility is much harder to follow.

Though I'd push back on one thing.

The labor movement of that era didn't just wait for laws.

They organized.

And what's interesting about the housing crisis right now is that technology is also being used by tenants, not just by landlords.

There are tenant unions using apps to coordinate, to share information about which landlords are problematic, to pool legal resources.

Sí, es verdad, aunque hay una asimetría enorme.

Yes, that's true, though there's a huge asymmetry.

El capital tiene acceso a la mejor tecnología y puede pagar a los mejores ingenieros.

Capital has access to the best technology and can pay for the best engineers.

Los movimientos de inquilinos son importantes, pero no tienen los mismos recursos.

Tenant movements are important, but they don't have the same resources.

Es un poco como comparar el ejército de un Estado con una milicia, aunque admito que las milicias a veces ganan.

It's a bit like comparing a state army with a militia, though I'll grant you that militias sometimes win.

Fair point.

What about the political response specifically in Spain?

Because I know housing has become a major flashpoint there.

You wrote about it last year, if I remember.

Sí.

Yes.

En España hay una crisis de vivienda muy seria, especialmente en Madrid, Barcelona y las ciudades costeras.

In Spain there's a very serious housing crisis, especially in Madrid, Barcelona and the coastal cities.

El gobierno aprobó una ley de vivienda en 2023 que incluye la posibilidad de controlar los precios en zonas tensionadas, es decir, zonas donde los alquileres han subido de forma desproporcionada.

The government passed a housing law in 2023 that includes the possibility of controlling prices in stressed zones, meaning areas where rents have risen disproportionately.

Pero su aplicación ha sido muy irregular porque requiere que las comunidades autónomas la implementen, y algunas se niegan.

But its application has been very uneven because it requires regional governments to implement it, and some refuse.

The Spanish constitution, and you'll know this better than I do, actually recognizes the right to housing.

Article 47.

Which is more than you can say for the American constitution, the British constitution, most Western legal frameworks.

El artículo 47 dice que todos los españoles tienen derecho a una vivienda digna y adecuada, y que los poderes públicos deben promoverlo.

Article 47 says all Spaniards have the right to decent and adequate housing, and that public authorities must promote it.

El problema es que es un derecho de carácter programático, no directamente exigible ante un tribunal.

The problem is that it's a programmatic right, not directly enforceable in court.

No puedes demandar al Estado porque no tienes casa.

You can't sue the state because you don't have a home.

Así que es más una declaración de intenciones que una garantía real.

So it's more a statement of intent than an actual guarantee.

The gap between constitutional aspiration and daily reality.

That's a story I've reported from about fifteen different countries and it never gets less complicated.

Lo que sí me parece interesante de la ley británica es que llega después de años de presión política real.

What I do find interesting about the British law is that it comes after years of real political pressure.

Los jóvenes en el Reino Unido han perdido completamente la esperanza de comprar una vivienda.

Young people in the UK have completely lost hope of ever buying a home.

Alquilar ya no es una etapa de transición, como era para mi generación, sino la situación permanente.

Renting is no longer a transitional phase, as it was for my generation, but the permanent situation.

Y eso cambia la política, porque la gente que alquila empieza a votar en consecuencia.

And that changes politics, because people who rent start voting accordingly.

The generational fracture is real.

I've been in enough cities in the last ten years to see it.

The people who bought property twenty years ago and the people who are trying to rent now are living in essentially different economic realities, even in the same neighborhood.

Y la tecnología ha acelerado esa fractura.

And technology has accelerated that fracture.

No la ha creado, pero sí ha hecho que la acumulación de riqueza a través de la propiedad sea más eficiente, más global y más rápida.

It didn't create it, but it has made wealth accumulation through property more efficient, more global, and faster.

Es más fácil comprar un piso en Lisboa desde Hong Kong que desde el barrio de al lado, si tienes el capital y la plataforma adecuada.

It's easier to buy a flat in Lisbon from Hong Kong than from the neighborhood next door, if you have the capital and the right platform.

So where does this end up?

If I had to sketch the landscape in five years, I see more countries following the UK toward stronger tenant protections, because the political pressure is building everywhere.

But I also see the technology continuing to evolve faster than regulation can follow.

And that gap is where the real fight will happen.

Creo que tienes razón en el diagnóstico.

I think your diagnosis is right.

Lo que me preocupa es que la regulación de la tecnología suele llegar cuando el daño ya está hecho.

What worries me is that technology regulation tends to arrive when the damage is already done.

Las redes sociales son el ejemplo más claro.

Social media is the clearest example.

Las regulamos después de que cambiaron la democracia, no antes.

We regulated it after it changed democracy, not before.

Con la vivienda, el daño ya está muy extendido.

With housing, the damage is already very widespread.

La pregunta es si la respuesta llega a tiempo para las generaciones que ya han perdido el acceso.

The question is whether the response arrives in time for the generations that have already lost access.

That is a genuinely dark thought to end on.

I'll let it sit there for a second, because I think it deserves to.

Oye, cambiando de tema un momento, ¿notaste que usé la expresión «zonas tensionadas» antes cuando hablaba de la ley española?

Hey, changing subject for a moment, did you notice I used the expression 'zonas tensionadas' earlier when I was talking about the Spanish law?

Es una expresión técnica que me gusta porque es muy descriptiva.

It's a technical term I like because it's very descriptive.

Una zona tensionada es literalmente un área donde la tensión del mercado ha superado la capacidad de las personas para vivir allí.

A stressed zone is literally an area where market tension has exceeded people's ability to live there.

I did notice it, and I want to ask about it, because you said something earlier that I want to unpack a bit.

You said «es importante que su aplicación sea uniforme», or something close to that, and that construction is one that still trips me up.

The subjunctive after es importante que.

Sí, es un caso clásico de subjuntivo.

Yes, it's a classic case of the subjunctive.

Cuando expresas que algo es necesario, importante o deseable para otra persona o situación, usas el subjuntivo.

When you express that something is necessary, important, or desirable for another person or situation, you use the subjunctive.

«Es importante que los inquilinos tengan derechos».

'It's important that tenants have rights.' 'It's necessary that the law be applied well.' The verb in the second part changes form to indicate we're talking about something we want to happen, not something that already happens.

«Es necesario que la ley se aplique bien».

El verbo en la segunda parte cambia de forma para indicar que estamos hablando de algo que queremos que ocurra, no de algo que ya ocurre.

So it's the mood of wanting and needing, not the mood of stating.

In English we've basically lost that distinction, we just say 'it's important that the law is applied well' and we don't change the verb.

Spanish makes you commit to the fact that it's a wish, not a fact.

Eso es una manera muy buena de verlo, sí.

That's a very good way to see it, yes.

El subjuntivo es el modo de los deseos, las dudas y las posibilidades.

The subjunctive is the mood of wishes, doubts, and possibilities.

Y en el contexto de hoy, donde hablamos de leyes que esperamos que funcionen, de algoritmos que queremos que se regulen, de derechos que necesitamos que se garanticen, resulta que el subjuntivo es bastante útil.

And in today's context, where we're talking about laws we hope will work, algorithms we want regulated, rights we need guaranteed, it turns out the subjunctive is quite useful.

The grammar of optimism.

I like that.

And on that note, possibly the most hopeful thing I've managed to say about housing technology all episode, we'll leave it there.

Thanks for listening.

Hasta la próxima.

Until next time.

Y si alguien quiere practicar el subjuntivo, que piense en todo lo que es importante que cambie en el mundo.

And if anyone wants to practice the subjunctive, just think about everything that it's important to change in the world.

Hay material de sobra.

There's plenty of material.