Young Spanish people continue to have problems to gaining access to housing, whether it is owning it or renting it. This is the conclusion that has been reached in a report shown, some weeks ago, by the real estate portal Fotocasa and called The Young and the Housing Market. This report states that 62% of young Spanish people under 35 cannot rent nor buy a house due to economic problems. This is the main stumbling block that young Spanish people find when looking for housing in our country. In addition, there exist other issues such as finding the house they would really like (as stated by 48% of the respondents), or receiving an interesting offer after the price adjustment has taken place due to the pandemic (22% of the respondents pointed this out). According to the facts and figures of the report, only 26% of Spanish people under 29 own a house, this being a significant decrease with regard to 2008, when the real estate crisis broke out, and just before those days the figure reached 54%. Nowadays, it has become more and more complicated for Spanish youth to be homeowners. The price of housing in our country continues to increase, giving rise to making the option of renting the most commonly selected one. In this blog, we already wrote an article about the rise of rental offers. It is estimated that in 2021, 59% of young Spanish people live in rented accommodation, even though 70% of them would like to be homeowners. Not even renting is an easy option, although we can say that young Spanish people do not slacken the efforts aimed at finding a home.

THE YOUNG PERSIST, IN SPITE OF THE DIFFICULTIES

It is evident that the health crisis we are living through has adversely affected youth employment in Spain. Therefore, it does not seem strange that our youth state that the main difficulty they have to face in order to be able to gain access to housing is of a financial nature. More than three years ago, we wrote an article in this blog about the challenge for young people of becoming emancipated in Spain. Let us imagine the situation nowadays, when we are still immersed in this health crisis. One only has to consider the fact that 20% of the young who currently rent a house are students, and of them just 6% would be able to purchase a house. If we take into account that only 30% of the young who are homeowners state that the improvement of their employment situation has been crucial to purchasing a house, then we can get an idea of the difficulties that young people have to face in order to have a good job which will enable them to purchase property. But, in spite of the difficulties, our youth persist in the search of a house. The report carried out by Fotocasa shows an interesting fact and this is that, contrary to what one might think, the young are the most active sector in our real estate system. It is calculated that 42% of young people under the age of 35 carried out a real estate deal in the last twelve months. This means 14% more than other segments of the population, and therefore, making it obvious that the pandemic has not discouraged our young people to give up on the search of a house.

WOMEN, AT THE HEAD

The report we are talking about shows that women are at the head, among young Spanish people, of wanting to become independent. It is calculated that 62% of women want to emancipate through renting a house and 58% via purchasing it. It is estimated that the average age of young men and women interested in the purchase of property, is of 28. Whereas, those that want to live in rented property are under the age of 27. However, we want to point out an interesting and significant fact which refers to the income of those young people who wish to purchase a house: only 16% of them earn more than 2.000 euros per month. This fact helps us understand the enormous difficulties that a young Spanish person has to face nowadays in order to be a homeowner. Let us see if the overall picture becomes encouraging as we overcome this health crisis and if the policies designed to help the young gain access to housing are established.

Picture 01: pressfoto

Picture 02: Lookstudio