Ibiza locals living in cars as party island sees rents soar
César Nebrera pours out a cup of coffee he has brewed on a stove in the boot of his car. The old green Kia saloon sits in the shade of a carob tree just off the main road near Ibiza Town.
"I miss the basic things that make life comfortable, like being able to stand up in your own home, being able to cook properly, or even open a drawer and pull out some socks," he says.
"Those are the kinds of things that you miss out on when you live in a car."
César's Kia has been his home for the past three years. He works as a chef, but with rental costs on the Spanish island of Ibiza having spiralled, he cannot afford to live in a flat.
"In Ibiza, accommodation is very expensive, and it's getting more and more expensive," he says. "And the cost of renting is completely out of kilter with what you earn. So living like this is an alternative. It's less comfortable, but it allows me to keep living on the island."
Ibiza is one of the four main Mediterranean islands that make up Spain's Balearic Islands. The others are Majorca, Menorca, and Formentera.
Many local professionals in Ibiza are living in similarly precarious conditions because of high rental costs. Last year, the IGC, a representative body of the civil guard police force, said that "three or four" of its officers were living in vehicles on the island.
Other locals have resorted to living in tents, or in extremely basic shared accommodation.
This is well beyond what minimum wage is about. The authorities should heavily regulate tourism there and make sure it’s not damaging the local communities. This is not only within their power, it is also the very reason they exist
They need to regulate Airbnb and other rental companies turning housing into hotels.
I really don’t understand how we got in this situation. Almost everywhere in the world, tourism used to be heavily regulated. The number of hotels beds, hotel locations, the seats in restaurants, everything monitored restricted and taxed. And then in the space of 10 years, here we are…
Businesses are too fast for policy to keep up. Loopholes and gray area.
Silicon Valley companies realized that laws are optional.
All the vacation rentals need to have been restrictions.
I will say in some parts of the country, you can see them starting to fail. Orlando there are tons of previous air bnb on the market.
You can get a fully furnished McMansion for 500k
Why are they failing?
That I don’t know. Go look at realtor or Redfin for Orlando by Disneyland and you can see what I’m talking about. You’ll know it was an air bnb because it’s fully furnished or they’ll say turn key.