Protesters blame 'vulture funds' for Spain's housing crisis

Pierina Nicuray, a 21-year-old university graduate, has spent a week camped out in Madrid's Puerta del Sol square.

Like many of the hundreds of others who have pitched their tents here to protest at Spain's housing crisis, she has no doubts when it comes to diagnosing the cause.

"It's the same problem as always," she says. "A lack of homes."

She adds: "Landlords are taking advantage of the situation to raise rentals, and then there's also Airbnb."

Jorge Moreno, a 19-year-old film-dubbing student who has also been living in a tent here in central Madrid for the last few days, agrees.

"There are so many homes standing empty because they have been bought by vulture funds and investment funds which hike up the rent of people living in properties until they get rid of them," says Jorge, who lives with his mother and fears it will be a long time before he can afford a home of his own.

"They've been making a business of housing for a long time," he adds. "But it's an abusive business which stops Spaniards from being able to live in a decent home."

His and Pierina's diagnoses are frequently voiced by fellow protesters, ordinary Spaniards and even the Spanish government.

On presenting a recent package of emergency measures to tackle the housing problem, Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said he was legislating "against those who consider housing just another object on the market with which to speculate".

Those reforms were rejected by Congress, prompting Sánchez to call a snap election next month.

Nicuray and Moreno can point to the single case that sparked the current Spanish housing protest movement as proof that profit-driven practices are at the heart of the crisis: the 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal was evicted from her home after the investment firm that had bought it tried to persuade her to leave, then sharply increased her rent, which she was unable to pay.

Although the social backlash that followed caused the company to invite Abascal to return to her old home, she never did, dying in hospital on Wednesday.

Many others have their own stories of struggling with a soaring rental market.

Carmen Pérez is a retired widow, originally from Ecuador, who has been living in Spain for 17 years.

When she arrived, housing was relatively cheap and accessible, but - as costs have risen - she has been forced to move in with her daughter and son-in-law as she looks for somewhere affordable to rent.

"When a property is listed to rent, there's always a long waiting list," she says. "And the rent is always too high for me. All of this has affected my health - I've got depression, I don't have any stability or security."

Spain has seen an average rise in rental costs of 84% over the last 10 years, according to property outlet Idealista.

In the centre of the southern city of Málaga, the increase has been 113 %, and, in Marbella - just under 150%.

Such numbers have made housing Spaniards' biggest concern.

A recent study by the Centre for Sociological Research (CIS) showed how the broader Spanish population, like the protesters, want to see action taken against those perceived to be powerful movers in the housing market.

Some 72% wanted higher taxes introduced for those with 10 or more properties; 76% wanted limits on short-term tourist accommodation; and 40% supported the expropriation of empty homes.

However, Jorge Galindo, director at the Esade centre for economic policy, says that available data makes it difficult to know exactly how many Spanish properties are owned by so-called "vulture funds" and being used for speculation.

He points to Bank of Spain figures from 2024 showing that only 8% of properties for rent are owned by companies.

Galindo says he concludes from the data available that there is not a notable accumulation of property to rent among a small number of owners in Spain.

"When it comes to explaining the rise in rentals, that is not the big cause," he says. "What explains it is the shortage of supply compared to demand over recent years."

The Bank of Spain appears to agree, and has estimated that the country has a housing shortfall of around 750,000 homes.

The institution's deputy governor, Soledad Núñez, warned in September that by 2028 that could rise to one million.

There are 3.8 million empty properties in Spain, according to the National Statistics Institute (INE), but a large number of those are in depopulated rural areas and therefore have little relevance to the current crisis, which is most acute in urban hubs.

Other explanations for this high number include properties awaiting renovation, or legal disputes between family members who have inherited them.

Demographic changes play a major part in the imbalance between supply and demand.

Between 2021 and 2025, there were about 1.2 million new households in Spain, driven in great part by the arrival of migrants who have played a major role in the country's recent economic growth.

However, house building has not kept pace, with fewer than half-a-million new homes during that period.

That was partly because Spain's construction industry had shrunk in the wake of the Eurozone crisis, while the cost of materials rose substantially after Covid, and a lack of political consensus put legal obstacles in the way of building.

"It was not a priority for us to build new houses," Galindo says. "But, once the demographic boom came, we realised how costly it was for us."

He adds that short-term tourist accommodation, like Airbnb, which has been identified by both the Spanish government and many activists as a culprit, is likely to have had a more localised effect, pushing up prices in specific urban areas rather than having an overall impact.

Meanwhile, the crisis has been aggravated by lagging salaries.

A study by El País found that, in real terms, the average Spaniard had 5% less spending power than a decade ago, due to taxes, social security and inflation. The average monthly salary in the Madrid region is €1,550 (£1,314; $1,738).

"No worker should have to spend 75% or 80% of their salary on rent, because what are they supposed to eat?" says Francisco Pardo, an 81-year-old retired taxi driver, who sympathises with the protesters, during a visit to the tent city in Madrid.

"Many workers don't even earn €2,000 [per month]."

The case of Maricarmen has suddenly made the housing crisis an urgent topic of discussion, not just in Madrid's Puerta del Sol but across the country.

The question now is whether a consensus can be reached on how to solve it.