The high price of rents certainly affects everyone. Perhaps the young something more. Especially, because they see that to the sum of money, in many cases indecent, that they are asked for a month to rent a property, they have to add the precarious salaries that they receive for the mere fact of having just landed in the labor market. This means that the age of emancipation in Spain does not stop growing. Right now, and according to figures from the study on youth and employment in Spain 2030 prepared by the NGO Ayuda en Acción, published on April 11, young Spaniards become emancipated around the age of 30, when the European average is around 26. This scenario it inevitably leads to frustration.
Jofre Vallejo (31 years old) wishes he had been emancipated a long time ago, but today he continues to live with his parents. The reason? You can't afford anything else. It's been a little over a month since his situation has improved -now he works as a physical education teacher (he is a temporary civil servant) in a school in Vilassar de Mar-, although his reality was quite different until recently.
“Until now – he explained to La Vanguardia – he had not been able to work in the public sector. Yes in the private, where he had made substitutions (short periods) at the same time that he was a dining room monitor in Badalona ”. He entered, he says, between 500 and 600 euros per month. “It was very unfeasible to emancipate myself like this alone. Neither with a partner or sharing.
Despite the fact that the context has changed, he does not contemplate leaving the family home, and all because of the eventuality that his interim entails. "The idea of leaving my parents' house does not exist."
He explains that he has peers his own age who are in the same situation, and that those he knows who are renting or paying a mortgage are couples with a good and stable job. He also affirms that he does not have "any acquaintance" under the age of 28 who is living on his behalf, nor with a partner.
Gerard Canals (26) can corroborate it. He lives with his parents, as his girlfriend. Both, however, want to be emancipated, although the outlook is not encouraging. They look for a property apartment "because the rental price is through the roof", but they can't find anything below 400,000 euros. Gerard defines his situation as "frustrating."
It is true that they are looking in wealthy neighborhoods, such as Barcelona's Eixample, where their families live, but they defend that a flat "is for life" and that they do not want to live in a neighborhood that does not appeal to them.
For now, they are in no rush. They will continue to live with their respective parents and save. Both work: he is a tax lawyer; she, an employee in a real estate agency. They will not stop trying, they say, but it is possible that they will not find what they are looking for. So what will they do? “Lower our expectations,” admits Gerard. As? Going to a neighborhood they don't like so much. “It's as if you want to buy a 200-euro pair of sneakers that you love, but it's not enough. You will end up buying some 80, and thankful that you can afford them, because there are people who cannot ”.
He does not believe that the solution to the housing problem is to limit rental prices. When you affect the market, he says, it ends up coming out through another site, avoiding the limitation. And in this context, he emphasizes, "the victim is always the tenant."
Failing that, bet on tax discounts for young people, such as property transfers. He says that in Catalonia it amounts to 10%, 5% for young people with a certain income. "But if you have to deal with a flat of 400,000 euros, that tax is 20,000 euros, an amount that you cannot finance."
Another measure that he proposes: improve salaries. “We charge a pittance. If we won 2,000 euros, it would not be a problem to pay 800 or 1,000 in rent, ”he asserts.
Oriol Freixes, like Gerard, is also 26 years old and also lives with his parents. This 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...".
A career engineer, he works teaching extracurricular activities at a school and giving private classes. In September he wants to start the master's degree 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 there are some who have been working for years and with a decent salary."
He acknowledges that he will not find a flat like his parents' “anywhere”. He affirms, however, that he does not want to live "in a 30 m² apartment for 900 euros a month" that is also located in a neighborhood that he does not like.
Like the rest, he also laments the low salaries they receive. “When I worked as an engineer, it was more convenient for me to have an internship contract than to be an employee,” he argues. "Everyone thinks that by being an engineer you start out earning 2,000 euros, but that's not the case."
Claudia Guillén (28) feels luckier. She is from Sant Joan Despí (Barcelona), almost a year ago she went to Madrid for a job offer (she works in a film production company). She affirms that she was lucky to find out, through a co-worker, that a girl was looking for someone to share a flat with. “The house suited me and it was quite well priced [he pays 425 euros per month]”. Her amount satisfies her: the cost is 30% of her salary and she knows "that there are people who pay much more". But her satisfaction is not complete: the contract ends next year and the landlord has already told them that he will raise the rent, "although not much."
Regarding his friends, he says that the casuistry is varied. “There is a couple who have a partner and are with a mortgage. I also have friends, teachers and who are interim, who still live with their parents because they have not 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 we were studying now, when we are 28 we have been working for five or six years." She doesn't complain about his salary. She is convinced, however, that in the same way that her rent will be raised next year, her compensation will remain unchanged.
Andreu Domènech (26) is not complaining either. Less than a year ago he found an apartment with an attractive sale price in Barcelona –which he shares with a partner- and with the savings he had he took out a mortgage. He had previously spent two years in a shared apartment, where he had rented a room.
He paid 330 euros for it, a “very competitive” price –he says- because the landlord, a colleague, was not the owner of the house (it belonged to his grandfather who rented it to him at a “very good price”): “For 300 euros you can't find a room even remotely. They are much more expensive."
For two years, he has been working as a financial adviser. He admits that he earns a good living, although that was not the main reason why he decided to buy a flat. He explains that he could no longer continue living where he was renting and that he had to look for another place, and that having saved money – “from precarious jobs that he had done since he was 17 years old” – he thought of looking for something that could become his property. “I didn't hold out much hope of finding it, but an opportunity came along and interest rates hadn't gone up yet. The stars aligned ”, he affirms.
He admits, however, that his situation does not match that of most of his friends “The usual? People who still live with their parents or who are paying rent. It's complicated".
