The price of housing in Spain grows nearly three times more than salaries in one year
Real estate becomes 12.1% more expensive in the State, more than double the eurozone average
BrusselsThe housing crisis continues to worsen. While evictions take on a proper name, the public seems to say enough is enough and politicians are racing against the clock to find solutions, the data only confirm the severity of the problem: housing prices are moving further and further away from salaries and families' ability to save.
In the Spanish State, housing became 12.1% more expensive compared to the previous year, according to data that Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, published this Thursday regarding the second quarter of 2026. In contrast, in the same period, hourly labor costs, that is, what a worker earns for each hour of work, grew only by 4.3%, also according to official Eurostat data published this September. This means that the purchase price of homes grew almost three times faster than wages.
According to the latest data, although growth has slowed slightly compared to previous quarters, Spain remains among the countries in the European Union where the real estate market has become most expensive in the last year. While the cost of housing rose by 4.7% on average in the EU and by 4% in the eurozone, in Spain properties became approximately three times more expensive than the community average. During the same period, rent registered an increase of 3.0% at a European level.
The gap between residential evolution and wages –which in Spain is close to 8 percentage points– was much more moderate in the European Union as a whole, where housing became approximately one and a half times more expensive than salaries. In fact, Spain is the fourth EU state where this difference is most pronounced. Only Portugal, Slovakia and Romania have registered an increase in real estate prices even more distanced from wage growth.
In contrast, in large economies like France and Germany, the trend was the opposite: wage compensation grew above housing prices. In Germany, salaries increased by 2.9% while real estate prices only did so by 0.6%; and in France, housing prices fell by 0.8%, while labor costs increased by 2.1%. Leading the list are Luxembourg and Finland, where wages grew 4 and 6 percentage points above housing, respectively.
This divergence between housing prices and labor income does not explain by itself all the difficulties in accessing housing –factors such as available supply, interest rates and credit conditions also play a role–, but it highlights where the frustration of the average citizen who cannot save at the same rate that the cost of buying a house grows may stem from.
The scourge of the youngest
Youth is the group that suffers most virulently from the housing emergency. Eurostat itself published other devastating data this week. One in four young people on the continent lives in overcrowded households, that is, households where there is more than one person per room (excluding couples). The proportion among young people is ten percentage points higher than that of the European population as a whole, which stands at 16.8%.
The pressure of this crisis does not affect all young people equally. Young people between 15 and 19 years old are the most affected group (30.1%). Three out of every ten young people of this age live in households where space and privacy are lacking. As they grow older, the figure drops slightly to one in five (21.8%). This is explained because, on the one hand, they continue living with their families due to the impossibility of moving out or because, on the other, they have to share an apartment with other people, generally young people. Romania, Latvia, and Bulgaria register the highest proportions.