** Spain:92% of households with adults aged65+ own their home.

One of the characteristics that best defines Spanish society is being a "home-owning country," a feature that has been shaping our country since the mid-20th century to the present day. Spain is a country where the majority of people own their homes, with76% of the population living this way, while the remaining24% rent. This is not the case in other European countries like Germany or France, where49% and65% of the population own their homes, respectively.

However, the proportion of home ownership in Spain is decreasing over the years and may become a danger to the big dream of every Spaniard, which is to own their own home and invest in real estate. As mentioned earlier, since the1950s, one of the significant characteristics of the Spanish economy and society has been to be a country of homeowners. In1950, only45.9% of the population owned their own homes (which can be understood considering the proximity of the Civil War in time), in1960 this figure was51.9%, and in1970 it was63.4%. Thus, home ownership continued to grow in our country, reaching86% in1999. Since then, the proportion of home ownership in Spain has begun to decline and reached a minimum of75.1% in2020, while the current percentage is mentioned earlier76%.

Studying this chart, we can also see that 45.6% of housing in Spain is fully paid off, meaning there are no remaining mortgage payments, while 30.5% of these owned residences still have outstanding debts to the bank. This data changes as homeowners (typically a married couple) age and make mortgage payments, so the older the owners, the more likely it is that the housing will be fully paid off. It is not the same if one of the spouses is over 65 years old compared to both being under 55.

Chart:

As can be seen, in families where at least one person is over 65 years old, 92% of them have fully paid off housing. These families include retirees who receive a pension, and they often have a second property (more than 50% of people over 65 own a second home). The next level consists of families with two adults under 65, of which 52% have fully paid off housing. Finally, in families with two adults and one child, as well as in families with two children, the percentage of families with fully paid off housing is less than 43%, specifically 42.5% and 36.7% respectively.

There are at least two questions facing this situation: 1) How did we get to this point? and 2) What are the prospects for the future? The first question can be answered by briefly examining the financial and real estate crisis of 2007, when the number of mortgages issued dropped from 1.78 million in 2007 to a low of 315,535 in 2014, and currently stands at 558,210. Other factors also play a role, such as the increase in housing costs, which fell from 2008 to 2013, the impoverishment of society, whose real earnings are lower than in the 1990s, greater instability in the labor market, and so on.

As for the second question, the answer depends on the actions that will be taken at present. If there is no improvement in working conditions that leads to increased productivity and wages for workers, if young people do not have easier access to housing, if the accumulation of funds by adults under 55 is punished and prohibited, if taxes continue to rise and public debt grows to finance excessive government spending, if the construction of new housing is not allowed in areas where people want to live, etc., then it is likely that the share of home ownership will continue to decline in our country. After all, if we do not want Spain to stop being a country of homeowners and become a country of proletarians, the path chosen for over 20 years must be the opposite.