The housing emergency has unleashed a social and political earthquake in recent days, with the eviction of Maricarmen and Congress' rejection of the housing decrees as a backdrop. According to the CIS, citizens consider that the housing crisis is the main problem in Spain. The situation has worsened in recent years, bringing prices to record levels. The need for housing is high in a country with an increasing population and in which the use of real estate for non-residential purposes, such as tourist apartments, has grown. Meanwhile, construction continues to be burdened by the wounds of the real estate bubble and does not cover the new homes that are created each year, while the volume of social housing continues to be at the bottom of Europe.
The price of a home in Spain is currently equivalent to 8.4 full years of income for an average household, according to the Bank of Spain. It is the highest level of effort to buy a house since early 2011. It is very close to that recorded during 2005, when the real estate bubble was still bubbling. Two years ago this accessibility indicator barely exceeded 7 years of income. Along the same lines, families already have to allocate on average 38% of their income to pay a mortgage, above the recommended threshold.
This increasing effort to buy a house is the result of prices that grow faster than salaries. According to INE data, in the last three years the price of housing has risen almost three times as fast as salaries. Real estate has been steadily rising in price for a decade, now exceeding the bubble highs by 12%—without taking into account inflation.
The escalation has accelerated in recent times. Since 2021, housing prices have skyrocketed by 52.6% and in the last year alone it has increased by 12.2%. On the other hand, the average salary increase agreed in the collective agreements for this year barely exceeds 3%. According to data from the Ministry of Housing, an 80 square meter apartment costs an average of 188,500 euros. This amount is much higher in large cities, which concentrate the housing emergency, along with vacation areas. In Madrid and Barcelona, for example, an apartment of these characteristics reaches 433,500 and 368,000 euros respectively.
This same gap compared to the price of salaries is also repeated in rents, which have increased by 5.6% in the last year, according to Idealista. The increase is 43.8% since 2021. Renting a home with the characteristics of 80 square meters currently exceeds 1,200 euros on average in Spain.
Despite the exorbitant prices, renting is a formula that has gained weight in recent years, given the impossibility for many of thinking about buying an apartment. This is especially the case for young people, who are among the groups hardest hit by the housing emergency. According to the INE, half of households under 30 years old and a third of those between 30 and 44 years old are renters. Two decades ago they were 31.5% and 15% respectively. The emancipation rate has been delayed by one year in the last decade and now exceeds 30 years.
This increase in prices is the result of the mismatch between housing supply and demand. The number of inhabitants of Spain has increased from 47.4 million in 2021 to 49.8 million in 2026, according to the INE. In the last five years, an average of 240,000 new homes have been formed per year. On the other hand, in that same period an average of 121,600 homes have been built per year and around 93,600 have been completed. Construction has begun to take off in recent years after the collapse suffered with the bursting of the real estate bubble – more than 600,000 properties were completed in 2008 to just 36,000 in 2013 – but it is still far from covering the volume of new homes. The Bank of Spain estimates that between 2021 and 2025 alone, a deficit of up to 750,000 homes accumulated.
Added to this is that a part of the existing real estate stock has ceased to be used for residential use, in search of greater returns on the part of the owners. In the midst of a tourism boom, the proliferation of tourist apartments stands out - according to the INE, there are 341,000 -, in some cases illegally. The Bank of Spain estimates there are nearly 900,000 properties in the hands of non-resident foreigners or intended for vacation rentals.
Another housing leak is seasonal rentals, which have become a focus of fraud after the approval of the housing law. Some owners resort to this formula to circumvent residential rental restrictions and set higher prices, presenting contracts as temporary that in reality are not. According to data from Idealista, seasonal rental advertisements have more than doubled since 2023, while the supply of residential rentals has decreased by 20%. Along the same lines, the Rental Observatory of the Safe Rental Foundation estimates that the number of apartments available for rent has decreased in the last five years from 1.05 million in 2021 to 660,993 in 2026.
