Growing up in a rental condominium: “I will extend my working life to collect more pension, but I will have to go to a town. This is going to explode” | Business | EUROtoday

Ramón Bultó is nervous in regards to the future. Or somewhat his future residing for lease at 57 years previous. “Of course the situation worries me. I may extend my working life a few years to increase my pension, but even so it is likely that I will have to go to a town, very far from my daughters, friends and the city where I was born and raised.” He lives in an condominium within the Buenavista neighborhood of Getafe (Madrid) together with his eldest daughter Gabriela, 21 years previous and a scholar, and works within the IT division for a multinational. She pays 751 euros a month as a result of three years in the past, with the assist of the Madrid Tenants’ Union, she refused to signal a brand new contract of 1,100 euros with the Fidere vulture fund.

Iván Aranda, 46 years previous, lives on lease within the district of Arganzuela (Madrid), is separated and has two youngsters. He works in renewable power consulting and acknowledges his luck, though he doesn’t conceal his uncertainty and restlessness. “Today I have a good job, but it would be difficult to maintain the level of spending if next year I didn’t have it. I’m worried about what will happen when I retire, spending that amount of money every month that doesn’t translate into an asset that I own and after 20 years not having a place to drop dead. If there were a rental ecosystem with sufficient supply and at reasonable prices, everything would be much calmer.” He pays 1,300 euros a month, a low value for the world—the place as much as 1,700 euros are being requested—as a result of the owner is his buddy. The place isn’t a whim: he has rented close to the place his ex-partner lives “so that the logistics with the children are more or less comfortable,” he says.

There are many examples like these. Renting is now not solely and solely for younger folks. More and extra older individuals are pressured into this market because of the impossibility of shopping for a house. They wish to escape from an unsure and costly lease. Spain, traditionally a rustic of house owners the place the home has been the very best pension plan, is dealing with a brand new situation. And it doesn’t appear to be ready for what’s to come back: the getting old of the Spanish inhabitants in a rental. The era of child growth —born between the late fifties and mid-seventies— would be the first to collide with this harsh actuality.

“Time bomb”. This is how Josep Oliver, emeritus professor of Applied Economics on the Autonomous University of Barcelona, ​​describes it, who speaks of the pressing want for the Government and public insurance policies to take care of this group that’s approaching or is of retirement age. Time strikes towards him. “Access to own a home is increasingly difficult, mainly because people cannot save for the down payment on a flat due to the high prices we pay for rent. People are getting older, which makes it more difficult to save and be granted a mortgage that allows you to pay for a home in the time you have left until retirement. This is going to explode,” says Ramón Bultó.

Although the majority of leases in Spain proceed to be within the fingers of individuals between 30 and 40 years previous, CaixaBank Research confirms that the burden of tenants aged 45 to 65 has elevated in recent times, since earlier than the pandemic. And INE information affirm that this group continues to rise yearly. In 2024, the most recent determine accessible, the variety of households aged 45 to 65 residing below this modality was 14.9%, greater than double that of 2004 (6.5%). The group headed by an individual aged 65 or over was 5.2% in 2024, when twenty years in the past it was 3.2%.

This enhance displays a structural transformation of the market, the place leases are now not unique to younger folks and have an effect on a broader age vary. Professor Oliver dissects it. “By age, in Spain 32% of all rentals correspond to households whose reference person is 50 years old or older.” In phrases of accessibility (lease divided by household revenue), they pay round 25% of their revenue. “The level of effort is less high, because they generally tend to have higher incomes,” they are saying at CaixaBank.

Now, issues change when the magnifying glass is positioned on the extent of household revenue. “We see concentration of rent in the poorest households,” says Oliver. More than 37% of the lease is concentrated within the third of households with the bottom revenue they usually allocate 44% of those to pay lease, properly above the 30% acceptable most. If different fundamental bills are added, resembling provides, these households are left with lower than half their wage free. “In this context of aging, there is a group, those aged 50 and over, who are not in the public debate, who focus only on young people, when in reality their weight is only 8% (under 30 years old),” explains Oliver.

Elena Martínez, sociologist and head of Research and Evaluation at Provivienda, agrees: “There is a socially accepted image that housing is a problem that affects youth, but we have to take into account that within the rest of the age groups the reality is very heterogeneous and we find very worrying situations.”

The must resort to leasing responds to a number of components. On the one hand, it’s the pure marketplace for middle-aged immigrants. On the opposite hand, costs don’t cease rising and the situations of entry to financing are harder. “After successive crises, a part of the population between 50 and 60 years old lacks the necessary capital to face the entry of a mortgage,” says Ana Solozábal, vice chairman of the Madrid Association of Real Estate Companies (Amadei).

Divorces and separations

Furthermore, “there are more and more separations in nuclear households that go from needing one home to needing two in the middle of their life cycle and also more single-person households, with less savings capacity,” says Elena Martínez. For this group, renting is a pressured determination: “They cannot find or cannot afford to own housing,” says José María Alfaro, president of the National Federation of Real Estate Associations. And he provides: “There is a process of decapitalization of middle-aged people.”

This is the case of Iván Aranda who, as well as, has skilled firsthand the 2 burdens of the market: each costs and provide. “Of 30 interactions with advertisements on portals, I did not manage to see any apartment.” And, in fact, you can’t purchase an condominium just like the present one, with three bedrooms. He does not assume the issue is the lease. per sehowever to do it within the present context of restricted provide and unreasonable costs. “I’m trying to think of a plan, but the truth is that I can’t think of any. Rather, I prefer to cross my fingers to continue maintaining my situation and being aware of the luck I have had with the apartment.” Neither does Ramón: “If the Administrations protected the tenant, renting should not be negative. My parents lived their entire lives with an indefinite old rental contract.”

Pedro Martínez is 65 years previous and, as a result of numerous penalties left by Covid, he receives unemployment advantages together with the Minimum Living Income complement, round 650 euros monthly. He has all the time lived for lease, in numerous cities, since he has labored as a cook dinner. With the assist of Provivienda, he has been capable of entry an formally protected condominium managed by the general public housing firm of the Provincial Council of Granada.

Getting older and getting old out of lease is an explosive combine because the market is at this time. “In many cases, it leads tenants to residential exclusion,” says Lena Martínez. And the older you might be, the more severe: 22.7% of households headed by folks over 65 years of age are in residential exclusion. “Among people over 65 years of age, the level of effort is higher, as is the case among the group of young people,” they point out in CaixaBank Research. For the Provivienda sociologist, “renting has become a factor of economic vulnerability at all stages and of course also in old age.”

The property’s weight reduction isn’t restricted to the youngest cohorts, however is progressively spreading to the remainder of the age teams. According to analyzes by Provivienda, a non-profit entity, initially of the 2000s, 66% of younger households resided in a house they owned. Today that proportion has been decreased to 31.8%. “In some cases, entry into the property is increasingly delayed in the life cycle. In others, a growing number of households go through their entire residential itinerary in rental,” says Elena Martínez.