New property market figures have laid bare just how difficult it has become for younger people in Spain to fly the nest and move into their own home.
According to data from the Federation of Real Estate Agencies (FAI), only a quarter of homes in Spain in 2024 were bought by young people moving out of the family home.
Spain is the fourth country in the EU where young people take the longest to leave home, still living with their parents well into adulthood.
The latest data available from Eurostat, the European stats body, shows that Spaniards leave home at 30.4 years old on average. Forty-five percent of young people up to the age of 31 still live with their parents, and among those who do manage to get a place of their own, nearly four in ten still need financial support with expenses.
READ ALSO: Nearly half of Spaniards under 31 live with their parents
Property market data reflects the struggle. The FAI figures show almost half of buyers (48.8 percent) were homeowners changing their home, 25.8 percent were tenants taking the step to buy, and just 25.4 percent were buying their first home to fly the nest and move out of the family home.
Stats from the ‘Buyer Profile Study 2025’ also showed that the average age of house buyers in Spain is 41.8 years old.
This delayed independence that exists in the Spanish property market is a long-established trend but also hardly surprising in recent years as prices have soared. According to property website Fotocasa, property purchasing prices are rising 17 percent year-on-year. In the last five years alone, there has been a 40 percent increase in the cost of an average home here.
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This is driven by several factors, notably dwindling supply combined with increasing demand from not only Spaniards but wealthy foreigners in the post-pandemic period. Younger Spaniards played a very visible role in the anti-tourism and pro-housing protests that swept Spanish cities last year, with short-term tourist rental platforms like Airbnb earning the blame from younger generations across the country.
María Matos, Director of Research and Spokesperson for Fotocasa, has also outlined the shortfall in affordable properties in Spain and points to the the lack of construction underpinning it: “At Fotocasa, we estimate that we need 1.8 million homes, both for purchase and rental, to respond to the housing crisis”, she said.
READ MORE: ‘Red tape takes longer than building homes in Spain’
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Presenting the report, FAI president José María Alfaro reiterated the socioeconomic consequences of delayed housing independence. “Housing has become a factor of inequality that affects the personal and economic development of thousands of families. We are not facing a mortgage or financial bubble like the one in 2008, but we are facing a real estate bubble caused by the shortage of supply and the structural imbalance of the market. This situation puts the economic and social development of the next generations at risk,” he said.
The study also showed that the most demanded price on the market was between €150,000 and €250,000 and the average size of the property purchased was 88.7 m/2, reflecting family-sized properties rather than first time buyers.
In terms of demographic profile, couples with children accounted for 41.2 percent of total transactions, closely followed by childless couples with 36.6 percent percent, and individuals, at 16.8 percent.
READ ALSO: The overlooked factors causing Spain’s housing crisis
