Spain’s housing crisis takes centre stage ahead of snap election

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Monday called a snap election for 29 November, after parliament rejected housing relief measures proposed by his minority government.

It came after tens of thousands of protesters marched in Madrid and other cities to demand affordable housing, galvanised by the forcible eviction of an elderly woman, who died in hospital this week.

Maricarmen Abascal, 87, was evicted on a stretcher on 23 September after the real estate firm that owned her Madrid apartment drastically hiked the rent.

By the time she died on Wednesday, she had become the symbol of a crisis that cuts across Spanish society – young and old, renters and buyers, workers and pensioners.

The uproar at her eviction triggered national demonstrations, with hundreds of people camping in central Madrid's Puerta del Sol square. Protesters set up tents in Puerta del Sol square, on 28 September 2026.

On Thursday, the square turned into an improvised memorial to Abascal. 

Protesters in the square wept and embraced each other after learning the news. Hundreds marched towards parliament on Wednesday night, some calling the death a "murder".

A deal had been reached with the real estate firm allowing Abascal to return home at a lower rent, but she ultimately spent her final days in hospital.

"She didn't have to die this way. Maricarmen wanted to die in her house," said Valeria Racu, a spokeswoman for the Madrid Tenants' Union, which supported Abascal in her years-long legal battle against the company.

Unions have called for a national minute's silence at noon on Friday.

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Chronic shortage

As in other European countries, housing has long been a major public concern in Spain, particularly for young adults. Priced out of the market, many live with their parents into their 30s and beyond.

Growth in housing prices has outstripped wages in recent years.

According to the latest figures from the National Statistics Institute (INE), the average gross monthly salary in Spain is around €2,460. Meanwhile, renting a 50-square-metre apartment in Madrid cost an average of €1,170 per month in September, according to real estate portal Idealista – around half of a normal income.

Meanwhile Spanish inflation hit 4.9 percent in September – its highest level since February 2023.

Many residents in popular destinations like Barcelona complain that short-term tourist accommodation is limiting supply and driving up prices.

Investment funds with large housing portfolios are also accused of acquiring properties and hiking rents to maximise profits. Protesters hold a picture of Maricarmen Abascal, the 87-year-old pensioner whose eviction triggered nationwide protests over Spain's chronic housing crisis, after her death on 7 October 2026.

A limited supply of public housing is another major factor.

Madrid has only around 10,000 social housing units for its 3.5 million inhabitants. Such is the demand for them that some public apartments are allocated by lottery.

A history of private home ownership partly explains the small public housing stock. Under the dictatorship of General Francisco Franco from 1939 to 1975, authorities encouraged people to buy.

But the model is breaking down, especially for the young. While almost three in four households own their main residence, more than half of under-30s rented in 2025, according to the INE.

Jorge Galindo, director of the Centre for Economic Policy at Esade business school, said the 2008 global financial crash was a turning point for the Spanish housing market. The bursting of a real estate bubble sparked the "collapse" of construction and "the destruction of a million jobs" in the sector, Galindo told French news agency AFP.

Since then, supply has fallen from around 260,000 new builds per year in the 1990s to 92,000 in 2025, he said.

The expert warned that the country of around 50 million people risked becoming "a society of inheritors" in which home ownership depends on parents passing property to their children.

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Election pressure

Successive governments have struggled to resolve the problem, which will be a central debate of next month's snap election.

Last week, Sanchez's leftist coalition proposed a series of measures including more restrictions on evictions, a ban on the speculative purchase of homes and the automatic renewal of tenant contracts.

But the minority government failed to pass them in parliament, leading Sanchez to bring forward a vote originally scheduled for 2027.

Spain's main unions have called a general strike for 11 November to increase pressure on the government over housing, wages and the cost of living.

In 2023, Sanchez's government passed a law that provided for more social housing, the regulation of rents in areas under the greatest stress and punishments for owners who left their properties empty. But the law has not stopped prices spiralling.

Right-wingers say the leftist central government has been unable to tackle the crisis after eight years in power. The main opposition, the conservative Popular Party, advocates a building boom to make up the deficit between supply and demand.

Sanchez, who is trailing in most polls, has accused the Popular Party and far-right Vox of siding with speculators and large investment funds by voting down his housing measures.

For Galindo, the debate contains a "paradox".
"Those who suffer most from the housing crisis are those with the least weight at the ballot box: young people, who vote less, and immigrants."

(with newswires)