2023-05-03 00:22:42
The difficulty of access to housing is changing the way of life of Spaniards who, by force, are opting for rental housing, leaving property aside; and, only those who can, maintaining second homes to take vacation breaks. This is the new x-ray of the life of the citizens, who have seen how the increase in the prices of their own apartments and houses makes it impossible to access one of those properties, and forces them to live on lease. Although this x-ray goes by neighborhoods and the differences between provinces are, in many cases, abysmal.
Buying a home continues to be the preferred option for 75% of Spaniards. This percentage has fallen in the last decade, from almost 80% in 2011. The increase in real estate prices, the new requirements of banks to grant financing (it is no longer possible to obtain more than 80% of the appraisal value) and the decrease in wages prevents a good part of the population from accessing their own property. Even if they want
However, 26% of those who have a home have not yet finished paying, according to the Survey of Essential Characteristics of the Population and Housing published this Wednesday by the National Institute of Statistics (INE) with data as of July 1, 2021. This tenure regime (property with an active mortgage) has been declining and has fallen almost four points in the last decade, since in 2011 it comprised 33% of households.
For its part, the percentage of people with the house paid for has decreased slightly, from 38.9% in 2011 to 38.1% in 2021. Taking into account the INE data for 2021, 10.7% of people lived in a home of their own received as an inheritance or donation, 2.8% in one given free of charge or at a low price, and 6.1% in another way. If we look at the autonomous communities, there are few differences between households with home ownership and with a mortgage, although the highest are in Madrid (29.8%) and Murcia (29.7%), and the lowest in Galicia, with 18%.
This situation has led a part of the population, especially young people, to have to rent. Leased households are already close to 16% of the total, two and a half points more than a decade ago, and account for some three million homes. But here too the differences are by neighborhood.
If we differentiate in terms of the size of the municipality, the rental regime has more weight in cities with more than 500,000 inhabitants (basically, Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Zaragoza, Seville and Malaga), where it reaches 22.8% of households, compared to 12.4% of municipalities with 50,000 or less.
By autonomous communities, rentals are concentrated in Melilla (31%), the Balearic Islands (23.4%), Catalonia (23.2%), the Canary Islands (22.1%) and Madrid (19.9%), while the lower percentages correspond to Extremadura (9.4%), Cantabria (11%), Andalusia (11.4%) and Castilla-La Mancha (11.5%).
Another of the big differences between Spaniards is found in second homes. In 2021, 15.5% of households had a home of this type. This percentage doubled and reached 31.2% in those with a net monthly income of 5,000 euros or more. On the contrary, it was below 10% in households with net earnings of less than 1,000 euros per month.
Among the households that had a second residence, those in which all its members were Spanish (94.2%) and in which no member of the household had higher education (46.2%) predominated.
To give a few examples, Irún (Guipuzcoa) is at the top of this real estate ranking, since almost 50% of its households own another home. Of the total, the majority, 72%, is in another autonomous community and the rest abroad. It is followed by the richest municipality in Spain, Pozuelo de Alarcón, in the Community of Madrid, with 31.4% of households with a second home. Within the community, Leganés is in third place with 27%.
After them, there are other municipalities whose inhabitants have second homes, such as Teruel (with 26.9%), Coslada (Madrid), with 26.3%, Bilbao (26%) or Zaragoza (25.2%). On the other hand, the municipalities that register fewer homes with second homes are located on the islands, territories that are usually precisely a vacation destination, such as Telde with 4.3%, Granadilla de Abona with 4.62%, Arrecife with 5, 7% or Puerto de Santa María (Cádiz) with 6.18%.
According to the INE, 41% of the total spend more than 60 days a year in their second residence. It is more than two months, which can be the result of vacations, weekends and long weekends. 28.6% use it between one and two months, 17% spend between 15 and 30 days and only 13% spend less than 15 days.
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