As I understand it, these attempts to use digital nomad money to revive impoverished areas tend to become controversial when the impoverished locals realise what it means to compete with (from their perspective) extremely wealthy blow-ins. Maybe in particular circumstances it can work, like if the locals actually get most or all of the money spent by the newcomers (rather than going into the pockets of absentee landlords or large corporations).
The article opens by noting fears about Spain's "vibrant culture" dying out. Needless to say, this won't help with that problem and may well accelerate it, unless Spanish culture is coding workshops and padel (per the article).
> when the impoverished locals realise what it means to compete with (from their perspective) extremely wealthy blow-ins
It's also more socially acceptable to complain about this stuff when the newcomers are seen as wealthy. We saw this in Canada when Chinese nationals started buying up houses in Canada. To the point the government started limiting foreign ownership of residential real estate.
In Canada , it wasn’t limited to areas with economic struggles/lack of investment.
Most of the investment was in major metropolitan cities, leading to a statistically significant percentage of residential housing stock being bought up with foreign(imported) capital. Many of these units were subsequently used as store of investment (left empty)
Since policies did not support building at the pace that met increased demand(mainly immigration), and many foreign buyers were comfortable bidding up housing: this was a significant contributor to housing prices inflating to mutiples that were much higher than previous trends (i.e. upto 20 times median salary vs 5/7 times previously)
And the foreign buyer ban did lead to a measureable decline in prices
> As I understand it, these attempts to use digital nomad money to revive impoverished areas tend to become controversial when the impoverished locals realise what it means to compete with (from their perspective) extremely wealthy blow-ins.
I don’t see it like this, it may as well be that digital nomads are bringing much needed cashflow to the local community; of course this phenomenon should be monitored but digital nomads are so few that they can’t have a meaningful impact in sectors like housing or good prices.
You haven’t lived in Medellin, Colombia if you don’t think digital nomads can have an effect on housing prices.
My experience is from 2015-2024. I did the digital nomad thing for 9 years and lived in Medellin 4 separate times over that period for 6 months to a year each time.
I saw rents for normal folks, not furnished and not Airbnbs, do a 4x in that time period. Laureles was a middle class suburb for locals in 2015 and was just overrun by nomads by 2024. Poblado, Laureles, even as far as La Estrella saw a really noticeable impact.
Clearly I contributed to the issue and nomads did inject money into the economy but it also had a really visible effect on housing. I don’t have any ideas on how to do it right but it is something that should be approached carefully or locals get priced out.
EDIT: I believe they started more tightly regulating things in 2024 with required registration for <1 year rentals. Not sure how that has played out. Also added the specific neighborhoods that I saw things shoot up.
My social circle was largely nomads when I lived there so I was very aware of CoLiving, CoWork, and other business almost exclusively catering to nomads. Those exploded in number during this time period.
Poblado was already one of the richest neighborhoods in the whole country in 2015. One of my neighbors was an Emmy winning pianist. So, gentrification isn’t going to be a thing in neighborhood like that.
It is a single data point of my lived experience in that part of the world. I am not presenting it as a peer reviewed study. But, there are also examples like Portugal which has had more recent studies done on this.
And the nomad visa is not so cheap, by yourself it requires €2850/month which I believe is a LOT more than rural workers are earning, this is exactly how people get squeezed out of housing.
Holy crap that’s a lot of money. That’s just for the privilege of living and working there? Or do you get citizenship benefits like healthcare etc? And what about taxes?
In Cuenca, EC you have a lot of retirees and a few digital nomads. Most people don’t make a big move to spend more money than they would in their home country. So they frequent all of the same small local businesses and markets as the locals. No one learns Spanish so some money funnels into interpreters and facilitators. I ended up spending a lot of money on restaurants started by immigrants because I don’t like Ecuadorian cuisine that much. All of this to say that the money is distributed more than one might think.
As I understand it, these attempts to use digital nomad money to revive impoverished areas tend to become controversial when the impoverished locals realise what it means to compete with (from their perspective) extremely wealthy blow-ins. Maybe in particular circumstances it can work, like if the locals actually get most or all of the money spent by the newcomers (rather than going into the pockets of absentee landlords or large corporations).
The article opens by noting fears about Spain's "vibrant culture" dying out. Needless to say, this won't help with that problem and may well accelerate it, unless Spanish culture is coding workshops and padel (per the article).
> when the impoverished locals realise what it means to compete with (from their perspective) extremely wealthy blow-ins
It's also more socially acceptable to complain about this stuff when the newcomers are seen as wealthy. We saw this in Canada when Chinese nationals started buying up houses in Canada. To the point the government started limiting foreign ownership of residential real estate.
https://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/professionals/housing-markets-da...
In Canada , it wasn’t limited to areas with economic struggles/lack of investment.
Most of the investment was in major metropolitan cities, leading to a statistically significant percentage of residential housing stock being bought up with foreign(imported) capital. Many of these units were subsequently used as store of investment (left empty)
Since policies did not support building at the pace that met increased demand(mainly immigration), and many foreign buyers were comfortable bidding up housing: this was a significant contributor to housing prices inflating to mutiples that were much higher than previous trends (i.e. upto 20 times median salary vs 5/7 times previously)
And the foreign buyer ban did lead to a measureable decline in prices
Anyway,
Complain about what stuff? Isnt he saying the complaints are specifically that they are wealthy?
> As I understand it, these attempts to use digital nomad money to revive impoverished areas tend to become controversial when the impoverished locals realise what it means to compete with (from their perspective) extremely wealthy blow-ins.
I don’t see it like this, it may as well be that digital nomads are bringing much needed cashflow to the local community; of course this phenomenon should be monitored but digital nomads are so few that they can’t have a meaningful impact in sectors like housing or good prices.
You haven’t lived in Medellin, Colombia if you don’t think digital nomads can have an effect on housing prices.
My experience is from 2015-2024. I did the digital nomad thing for 9 years and lived in Medellin 4 separate times over that period for 6 months to a year each time.
I saw rents for normal folks, not furnished and not Airbnbs, do a 4x in that time period. Laureles was a middle class suburb for locals in 2015 and was just overrun by nomads by 2024. Poblado, Laureles, even as far as La Estrella saw a really noticeable impact.
Clearly I contributed to the issue and nomads did inject money into the economy but it also had a really visible effect on housing. I don’t have any ideas on how to do it right but it is something that should be approached carefully or locals get priced out.
EDIT: I believe they started more tightly regulating things in 2024 with required registration for <1 year rentals. Not sure how that has played out. Also added the specific neighborhoods that I saw things shoot up.
How do you assign changes to: “nomads”, expats, retirees, and even local gentrification?
My social circle was largely nomads when I lived there so I was very aware of CoLiving, CoWork, and other business almost exclusively catering to nomads. Those exploded in number during this time period.
Poblado was already one of the richest neighborhoods in the whole country in 2015. One of my neighbors was an Emmy winning pianist. So, gentrification isn’t going to be a thing in neighborhood like that.
It is a single data point of my lived experience in that part of the world. I am not presenting it as a peer reviewed study. But, there are also examples like Portugal which has had more recent studies done on this.
It matters more than you think when it's a rural area with limited housing supply...
And the nomad visa is not so cheap, by yourself it requires €2850/month which I believe is a LOT more than rural workers are earning, this is exactly how people get squeezed out of housing.
> it requires €2850/month
Holy crap that’s a lot of money. That’s just for the privilege of living and working there? Or do you get citizenship benefits like healthcare etc? And what about taxes?
I believe that's an income requirement, not a fee.
In Cuenca, EC you have a lot of retirees and a few digital nomads. Most people don’t make a big move to spend more money than they would in their home country. So they frequent all of the same small local businesses and markets as the locals. No one learns Spanish so some money funnels into interpreters and facilitators. I ended up spending a lot of money on restaurants started by immigrants because I don’t like Ecuadorian cuisine that much. All of this to say that the money is distributed more than one might think.
https://archive.ph/dBLoY
The town: Benarrabá, Málaga province, Andalusia.