More than 43% of the salary for rent, an all-time high… and in Madrid, Catalonia and the Balearic Islands, almost 60%

2023-04-24 22:06:37

Almost half of what they earn. That is what the average Spaniard who lives off rent to rent your home. According to a study carried out by Fotocasa and Infojobs, The percentage of gross salary that an average Spaniard allocates to rent is 43%compared to 40% in 2021. This is the highest percentage that both companies have registered.

In 2022, the price of rental housing in Spain closed with an annual increase of 7.4% and placed the price in December at 11.03 euros/m2 per month. This means that, taking into account the average gross salary in Spain registered by InfoJobs, which in 2022 was 24,395 euros (2,033 euros gross per month if we divide it into 12 payments); Spaniards had to dedicate 43% of their salary to paying the rent for a 80-square-meter home.

The situation is especially delicate in Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and the Community of Madridwhere the median income needed to rent a home reaches 58%.

«It is no longer just that wages do not grow at the same rate as housing. The main reason for reaching the highest level in history is that the rental price is at its highest historical level, showing the largest increases in the last 17 years”, explains María Matos, Director of Studies and spokesperson for Fotocasa. «The increase in the cost of the lease causes the salary effort that the citizen makes to access the rent to be well above what is recommended by the European control organizations that establish that it is not More than 30% must be allocated to the payment of housing. It is currently more than 10 points above the figure of 10 years ago. Only two autonomous communities -Castilla-La Mancha and Extremadura- present healthy levels. The rest, at a general level and especially in stressed areas, it is evident that the problem of access to rent is getting worse and worse, “adds Matos.

As far as salaries are concerned, not only as Matos says, it is not that they do not grow at the rate of rent, but rather, quite the contrary, they go backwards. “The average gross monthly salary at InfoJobs in 2022 has reached 2,033 euros (-0.7% compared to 2021). This represents a 6.4% loss in purchasing power, if we take into account that inflation closed at 5.7%”, explains Mónica Pérez, director of Communication and Studies at InfoJobs. “Wage increases have only occurred in certain professional sectors, more stressed by the lack of personnel, such as IT and telecommunications, construction and tourism and restaurants, which also generates territorial differences,” she adds.