The Government extends to 40 years the age for accessing emancipation loans

BarcelonaThe Government will extend the age of access to emancipation loans to 40 years from Monday. It is an "instrument to facilitate the payment of the down payment for a home for young people so that they can subsequently apply for a mortgage: "They encounter a barrier, a wall, which is the down payment," explained the President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, at an event at the Institut Català de Finances (ICF) this Friday.

an import "very difficult to have saved", Illa opinedThese loans cover up to 20% of the property's value, with a maximum limit of 50,000 euros. The intention is that it corresponds to the part that banks typically do not finance. Young people will have to repay this loan, facilitated by the public administration, to the AHC once they have paid off the mortgage with a 0% interest rate, for a maximum of 30 years. However, by joining the program, the property becomes a permanently protected official housing (HPO), which imposes conditions in case of subsequent sale or rental.

Illa has made a "very positive" assessment of it. In the eleven months that the initiative has been in force, the average value of the loans has been 36,342 euros –an amount "very difficult to have saved", opined Illa– for the purchase of properties worth around 190,000 euros. For reference, according to the Idealista portal, the price per square meter in Barcelona is 5,221 euros, meaning that a 60 m²apartment in the Catalan capital costs 313,260 euros.

These credits have facilitated the purchase of 1,158 homes, and the young people who have accessed them were 29.6 years old on average. "We are managing to reduce the average age of young people buying homes," remarked the Minister of Economy, Alícia Romero.

Barcelona accounts for more than half of the signed loans (55.9%), followed by the regions of Girona (10.7%), Penedès (9.4%), Camp de Tarragona (7.9%), Catalunya Central (6.7%), Ponent (5.0%), Terres de l'Ebre (3.5%), and Alt Pirineu i Aran (0.8%).

"Every little bit helps"

Illa has defended that "every stone makes a wall" and that emancipation credits are a measure that "contributes decisively" to alleviate the effects of the housing crisis, a scourge that particularly affects young people. However, the president has agreed that this measure alone will not be enough to reverse the situation.

According to the latest data from the Observatory of Emancipation of the Spanish Youth Council, during the first half of 2024, only 16.8% of Catalans between 16 and 34 years old had achieved it. In parallel, 74.5% of young people with jobs were still living at home with their parents.

Yet another figure to illustrate the same reality: Eurostat places the age of children building their own home – whether to buy or rent, family or shared with strangers – in Spain at 30 years, while the European average is 26.2. In France they are 23.5 years old; in Romania, 27.3; and in Sweden, 21.9.