The high price of rents certainly affects everyone. Maybe the young ones a little more. In particular, because they see that to the sum of money, in many cases indecent, that they ask for a month to rent a property, they have to add the precarious salaries they perceive for the simple fact that they have just landed on the labor market. This means that the age of emancipation in Spain does not stop rising. Right now, and according to figures from the study on youth and employment in Spain 2030 prepared by the oenagé Ajuda en Acció, published on April 11, young Spaniards become emancipated around the age of 30, when the European average approaching 26. This scenario leads them hopelessly to frustration.
Jofre Vallejo (31) wishes he had been emancipated a long time ago, but today he still lives with his parents. The reason? He can’t afford anything else. It’s been a little over a month that his situation has improved – he now works as a physical education teacher (he’s an interim official) at a school in Vilassar de Mar -, although his reality was very different until recently little
“Until now – he explains to La Vanguardia – he had not managed to work in public. In the private sector, yes, where I had done substitutions (short periods) at the same time as a canteen monitor in Badalonaâ€. He was earning, he explains, between 500 and 600 euros per month. “It was very unfeasible to emancipate myself like that on my own. Nor with a partner or sharing”.
Despite the fact that the context has changed, he does not plan to leave the family home, and all because of the eventuality that comes with his interim. “The idea of ​​leaving my parents’ house does not exist”.
He explains that he has colleagues his own age who are in the same situation, and that the ones he knows who are renting or paying a mortgage are couples with good, stable jobs. He also states that he does not have “any acquaintance” under 28 who is living on his own, nor with a partner.
Gerard Canals (26) can confirm this. He lives with his parents, as does his girlfriend. Both, however, want to emancipate themselves, but the outlook is not very encouraging. They are looking for an apartment “because the rent is sky high”, but they can’t find anything below 400,000 euros. Gerard describes his situation as “frustrating”.
It is true that they are looking in affluent neighborhoods, such as Barcelona’s Eixample, where their families live, but they argue that a flat “is for life” and that they do not want to live in a neighborhood that does not attract them.
At the moment, they are in no hurry. They will continue to live with their respective parents and save. They both work: he is a tax lawyer; she, an employee in a real estate agency. They won’t stop trying, they say, but there’s a chance they won’t find what they’re looking for. So what will they do? “Lower our expectations”, admits Gerard. How? Going to a neighborhood they don’t like that much. “It’s like you want to buy a pair of 200 euro thighs that you love, but you can’t afford them. You’ll end up buying about 80, and thanks if you can afford them, because there are people who can’t”.
He does not believe that the solution to his housing problem is to limit rent prices. If you affect the market, he assures, it would end up going the other way and circumvent the limitation. And in this context, he underlines, “the injured party is always the tenant”.
Instead, he is betting on tax breaks for young people, such as the one for inheritance transfers. He explains that in Catalonia it is 10%, 5% for young people with certain incomes. “But if you have to deal with a flat of 400,000 euros, this tax means 20,000 euros, an amount that you cannot finance”.
Another measure he proposes: improving salaries. “We charge a pittance. If we earned 2,000 euros, it wouldn’t be a problem to pay 800 or 1,000 in rent”, he says.
Oriol Freixes, like Gerard, is also 26 years old and also lives with his parents. In the last year, he has been considering emancipating himself, “but seeing how expensive everything is…”. “I don’t earn a million, and of course, if I have to spend 80% of my salary on rent…”.
Career engineer, works teaching extracurriculars in a school and giving private lessons. He wants to start his master’s degree in September to be able to work as a teacher. He is quite clear that the day he decides to become independent, he will have to do it outside of Barcelona. “Most of my friends, who are my age, live at home with their parents, and see that there are some who have been working for years and with a decent salary.”
He recognizes that he will not find an apartment like his parents’ “anywhere”. He claims, however, that he doesn’t want to live “in a 30 m2 flat for 900 euros a month” that is also located in a neighborhood he doesn’t like.
Like the rest, he also laments the low salaries they perceive. “When I worked as an engineer, it was more important for me to have an internship contract than to be a salaried employee,” he explains. “Everyone thinks that to be an engineer you start by earning 2,000 euros, but that’s not the case.”
Claudia Guillén (28) feels luckier. Originally from Sant Joan Despà (Barcelona), she went to Madrid almost a year ago because of a job offer (she works at a film production company). He claims that he was lucky enough to learn, through a colleague, that a girl was looking for someone to share a flat with. “The house suited me and was quite well priced [he pays 425 euros per month]”. The amount satisfies her, because the cost represents 30% of her salary and she knows “that there are people who pay much more”. But their satisfaction is not complete: the contract ends next year and the owner has already told them that the rent will go up, “although not by much”.
As for his friends, he says that the casuistry is varied. “There are a couple who have a partner and have a mortgage. I also have friends, teachers and temporary workers, who still live with their parents because they haven’t been able to become independent”.
He has the feeling that his youth “is getting too long”. “There is not much difference between when we were 20 years old and were studying and now, when we are 28 years old and have been working for five or six years.”
He doesn’t complain about his salary. She is convinced, however, that just as her rent will go up next year, her salary will not change.
Andreu Dom̬nech (26) is not complaining either. Less than a year ago, she found a flat with an attractive selling price in Barcelona Рwhich she shares with a colleague Рand with the savings she had, she took out a mortgage. Before that he had been in a shared flat for two years, where he had rented a room.
He paid 330 euros, a “very competitive” price – he explains – because the owner, a colleague, did not own the house (since it belonged to his grandfather, who rented it to him at a “very good price”): “For 300 euros you can’t find a room in any way. They are much more expensive.”
He has been working as a financial advisor for two years. He admits that he makes a good living, although this is not the main reason why he decided to buy an apartment. He explains that he could no longer live where he was renting and that he had to look for another place, and since he had money saved – “from precarious jobs that he had done since the age of 17” – he thought of looking for something that could reach to be his property. “I didn’t have much hope of finding it, but an opportunity appeared and interest rates hadn’t gone up yet. The stars aligned”, he says.
He admits, however, that his situation does not agree with that of most of his friends “The most common scenario? People still living with parents or paying rent. It’s complicated”, he concludes.
gerard canals
26 years
