Bernardos advises buying used caravans amid housing shortage

Bernardos recommends buying used caravans: there's nowhere to live

A plot of land with space to park and sleep five or six caravans. That is the scenario a forum user put on the table: it could become a good business for the next twenty years. Gonzalo Bernardos, an economist, was more direct: "For all those watching us, think about buying used caravans, this looks like a magnificent business because I don't know where we're going to put people". The phrase, reported by El Confidencial, describes a strained real estate market: according to the economist, demographic pressure and the lack of new construction could push many people towards forced housing solutions, such as ending up living in caravans.

What Bernardos said about buying used caravans

The quote did not go unnoticed. Some argue that an economics professor should not normalise the idea that the end of the road is a caravan, and others criticise his approach: presenting as an investment opportunity what is in fact the symptom of a much bigger problem. On the other side, some share the underlying diagnosis: more people are arriving than homes are being built and second-hand prices keep rising. If there is no brick, someone will have to sleep in something.

That is the point that sustains the most uncomfortable part of the argument: the warning does not describe a desirable future, it describes a forced exit. The difference between forecast and recommendation is the whole debate.

Is it profitable to buy used caravans to rent them out?

The calculation circulating is as simple as it is cold: a plot of land with space to park and sleep five or six caravans, operated as a business with a twenty-year horizon. Those defending the thesis point out that the bottleneck is not the vehicle, but the land to put it on, and that is where profitability will be concentrated.

It is not a new idea, some participants point out: in the United States this has been happening for a while. The parallel is used both to justify the opportunity and to warn of what is coming: when conventional rent becomes unaffordable, the market improvises.

From mobile home campsites to slums: the scenarios being considered

The final stretch of the diagnosis turns sour. There is talk of mobile home campsites appearing everywhere, informal settlements and a slum scenario reminiscent of other latitudes. The rural offshoot also appears: those who can, buy land, dig a well and secure water. And an image that sums up the general feeling: people getting a truck licence not to work, but to have a roof with wheels.

Positions range from resignation to opportunism, with little appetite to discuss the cause. If the market continues like this, the best business in bricks may not be bricks.