The price of housing in Spain closed the year 2025 with a price per square meter that reached a record level of 3,298 euros, after increasing by 8.9% year-on-year, the highest rate since 2006, when we experienced the height of the real estate bubble. … The fact that this figure is reached today, without a financial bubble or credit expansion, reveals something even more worrying: The main distorting factor is not the market, but the government. The Housing Law, of which Pedro Sánchez allowed the political capitalization by EH Bildu, is a law that has failed in all its objectives. With measures that discourage supply and worsen legal insecurity, access to housing has become an inaccessible privilege for the majority. The renewal of the so-called “social shield” proposed by Aberzale’s left – which prevents evictions even in situations of blatant abuse – deepens legal insecurity and further reduces the rental supply.
The government has chosen to intervene on prices, penalize owners and expand struggling areas, but has done little to expand the available stock. The Appraisal Society itself details the origin of the imbalance: high construction costs, lack of definitive land and endless administrative delays. No miracle is therefore possible.
It is true that competence in matters of town planning and land liberalization falls, for the most part, to the autonomous communities and municipal councils. But the Central Executive cannot hide behind this division to justify its passivity. It should have played a more active role as a promoter of structural reforms, suggesting coordinated lines of action, encouraging the release of finalist lands and fiscally rewarding those who favor new supply. Instead of proposing solutions on the supply side, he preferred to continue to stimulate demand with bonuses and minor aid. Meanwhile, demand continues to grow. A typical house of 100 square meters already costs 329,800 euros. And the real estate effort has slowly tightened: The Average Buyer Needs 7.6 Years of Full Salary to Buy a Homea figure which has barely fallen since mid-2022 and which will mark a real frontier for thousands of households. It’s not that housing is expensive: it’s that it is increasingly unaffordable in relation to real incomes, especially in the case of young people.
The case of Spain contrasts with what is happening in other developed economies. In the United States, cities that have decidedly opted for a supply-side policy – such as Austin, Charlotte or Nashville – have experienced reductions of 5 to 15 percent in rental prices. And the reason is very simple: they built more.
In our country, we continue to blame landowners, tourists and vulture funds, while we blockade land, stigmatize investments and overprotect illegal occupations. The consequences are visible: fewer apartments available, more expensive and less accessible. This 2025 was the year the real estate market stopped working. Not because supply or demand broke it, but because it intervened to the point of paralyzing it. There is no bubble, but prices are skyrocketing. There is no speculation, but access is getting farther away. And there are no solutions because we have given up on them. Housing has undoubtedly been the biggest economic failure of this year. And the most expensive for citizens.
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