Madrid- “The situation has deteriorated a lot” a sentence that summarizes the experience of Lyon Vasquez, which has lived in the Spanish capital Madrid for 10 years, during which it is transferred to live between 5 different regions, and the main reason was the high rental prices, or as the Spanish expression is said, “Prices Touch clouds.”
The first apartment of Lyon, 27, was in the modest Lavis area in the center of the capital, with an area of 32 square meters, with one window, and two rooms without windows.
“There was no natural light, and the humidity was very high. I was then paying 800 euros a month, and the last time I achieved, I found that the price of that apartment itself was close to two thousand euros,” he said to Al -Jazeera Net.
Lyon moved to the outskirts of the city, and he rented instead of the apartment a room within a housing with his friends, a living system that has become very familiar here, “The average youth income is not enough to cover the costs of living independently, so we are satisfied with bad conditions. Initially the room price was 250 euros, then it became 350, then 450, and now it exceeds 600 euros per month,” Lyon adds.
With his talk to Al -Jazeera Net, Leon mentioned the story of his colleague at university Isis, who was expelled from her home and found her, because she was unable to pay the rent of housing, but in return she did not find a substitute in Madrid, so she had to leave the city.
Military speculation
Lyon, who works as a journalist and deepens in researching the problem of rent, confirms that the living conditions in Madrid may not necessarily differ from some other European capitals, but Spain has additional factors that contributed to enhancing the problem of lack of sufficient homes that meet the increasing need for demand, which leads to continuous high prices.
The issue of real estate speculation – according to Lyon – is one of the most prominent reasons that have exacerbated the housing problem, as investment funds control some old or troubled real estate that face difficulty in selling or leasing, to in turn raise prices, which forced some of its residents to evacuate the property.
Under the title “The butchers who earn money from selling buildings”, the “Lavis” website published, which publishes news related to the same neighborhood that Lyon had previously inhabited, that one of the real estate companies bought a real estate in the neighborhood in October 2023, for 1.8 million euros, and after only 3 days it was sold by 2.65 million euros.
Lyon asserts that the Spanish government has provided some solutions, such as support for young groups, but the conditions imposed by these funds are not able to achieve them in light of the difficult economic conditions currently.
The “Terminal Union” in Madrid also confirms that all the current laws are in the interest of real estate owners.
Lease
According to the data of the Spanish Ministry of Housing, the average price per square meter in Spain at the end of 2024 was about 12.18 euros, compared to 11.20 euros in the previous year, which represents an annual increase of 9.53%, while the levels of wages remain stable.
Given the rental prices, the average monthly rent in Spain in the first quarter of 2025 reached 1080 euros, according to the Fotocasa Index, while the average monthly income per person (after deducting the tax value) does not exceed 1750 euros, and this means that the Spanish citizen is forced to spend more than 60% of his income on housing.
The problem does not stop there:
- In Madrid, the rents rose to 23.4 euros per square meter.
- In Barcelona, it amounted to 20.7 euros per square meter, outperforming major European capitals.
- In Valencia, in eastern Spain, the average monthly rent exceeded 1,600 euros for the house at the end of last year, while the value of the rent did not exceed 938 euros 5 years ago, according to the “residential union in Valencia” movement of Al -Jazeera Net.
The report of the “Idalesta” website, which is one of the approved platforms to search for places for housing in Spain, confirms that the high demand and the lack of supply exacerbates the crisis, as 14% of the units are rented within less than 24 hours of their display.
What makes the crisis complicated, the continuous expansion of the tourist rents that drain the residential market, as estimates indicate that more than 400 thousand housing units were allocated for this purpose, which raised prices in cities such as Malaga in the south of the country by up to 31%.
Protestive movements
The similar cases between many Spanish citizens prompted the out of protest demonstrations in the major Spanish cities, the last of which was last April in more than 40 cities, in which they demanded the Spanish authorities to intervene and find a solution to the problem, while residents of some cities – including Madrid – are preparing to go out in other demonstrations in May.
Pablo Barbero, a spokesman for the popular “residential union in Valencia”, is quoting left -wing, that current housing conditions in Spain affect the independence of young people, and the working class is pushing to live in specific areas outside the city, and some families are forced to live with the room participation system because they are unable to rent an independent house.
In its interview with Al -Jazeera Net, the movement confirms that the issue is clearly emerged in cities with tourist attraction, where housing is subject to investment targets and its angel seeks to reap huge profits, so they convert the houses that were intended for family rent to tourist rent.
Although the Spanish government approved the “Right to Housing” law in 2023 and described it at the time as “historical”, with the aim of organizing rents and prohibiting evacuation operations, the movement confirms that the law has not been applied adequately since then, as the evacuation operations are still ongoing and at high levels.
The movement believes that the solution lies in the establishment of independent housing unions, and the formation of groups that seek to pressure real estate owners and legislators, to limit the implementation of the evacuation operations by force, and to provide decent housing for those who cannot.
This is also confirmed by the “Union of Tenants” in Madrid, which was established as a reaction to “the ongoing violations that the tenants are exposed to” according to the description of those in charge of it, as they see that the only way currently available is to conduct friendly negotiations with real estate owners who press the tenants to evacuate, but at the same time they work to activate other means such as filing cases or carrying out strikes.
In their conversation with Al -Jazeera Net, spokesman for the Federation affirmed that they did not receive any support from any political party, and that they lost hope to obtain a solution through the governments, but they seek collective civil efforts to achieve their goal of eliminating the phenomenon of trade in housing, they said.
