Spain’s central bank released a report showing growing inequality in housing wealth over the last two decades. The Bank of Spain published its findings this week, highlighting how the gap between well-off households and those with lower incomes has widened since 2002, especially after the housing bubble and the economic shocks of recent years. The total real estate assets owned by the bottom 40 percent of households fell from about 1.5 billion euros in 2007 to roughly 1.25 billion euros by 2022, while the top 10 percent saw assets rise from 1.52 billion to about 1.63 billion.
For the poorest households, real estate assets declined by 16 percent, a metric that is not easily comparable to 2007 due to demographic changes and other factors late in the period. Access to housing has become more complicated, as the banking crisis and regulatory pressures over the past 15 years have led lenders to tighten mortgage criteria to prevent housing bubbles. As a result, the financing gap widened: households with smaller means must save more to secure property. This shift contributed to a drop in homeownership from 80.1 percent in 2007 to 75 percent in 2021, even as population grew by about 5.2 percent by 2022.
In Spain, where real estate has long represented a large share of household wealth, the value of homes accounts for about 69.5 percent of total assets, higher than in many other countries where financial assets like stocks or bank deposits are more prominent. During the housing boom, total housing wealth rose from 2.85 billion euros in 2002 to a peak of 6.27 billion euros in 2007. The subsequent crash pushed that value down to 4.19 billion euros by 2013, after which it began to recover. By the end of 2022, the total value of housing assets approached the 2007 level, even when inflation is not considered, reaching around 6.25 billion euros. Yet the distribution across income groups remained highly unequal, signaling a widening gulf in ownership.
rising inequality
Looking at the distribution, the bottom 40 percent of families held 20.1 percent of real estate assets in 2007, a share that remained largely stagnant by 2022, while the top 10 percent increased their share from 24.3 percent to 26.1 percent. The top 20 percent with the highest incomes accounted for roughly 40.7 percent of housing wealth in 2022, up from 37.4 percent, equivalent to about 2.54 billion euros. Meanwhile, middle and lower income groups saw their shares hover around two-fifths of total assets, with minor changes in absolute values.
Another way to gauge inequality is by looking at net worth, the total value of assets minus debts. The gap between the richest and the poorest remains pronounced and has grown in recent years. After mortgage debt is accounted for, the richest 10 percent owned 32.3 percent of total real estate wealth in 2007, rising to a similar high share by the early 2020s, while the bottom 50 percent’s share declined from 19.2 percent to around 15.7 percent.
get rich
The mortgage debt accumulated by households accounted for most of total debt, dropping 17 percent from 2007 to 2022, to about 492.4 billion euros. Lower-income households carried a much larger burden: their debt levels rose relative to their income, while higher-income households saw less burden overall. Rich households maintain a larger share of real estate assets relative to their net worth, even as debt edged down — a pattern that underscores the persistent wealth concentration in housing.
Household deposits surged, rising 98 percent since 2007 to reach 314,375 million euros, outpacing the 62 percent rise in the overall household sector (1.02 trillion euros) and the 34 percent increase among low-income families (155,164 million euros). Investment patterns also diverged: savings in investment funds grew by 90 percent to 215,722 million euros, exceeding the average growth and dwarfing the gains seen by the lowest income earners (3.9 percent to 28,608 million). Investment movements likewise shifted, rising about 10.8 percent to 71,500 million euros compared with a broad decline of 20 percent overall and a 22 percent drop among the least wealthy (to 5,280 million). Non-mortgage borrowings by the least wealthy contracted, while the wealthiest tracked higher non-mortgage holdings. Taken together, these trends paint a clear picture of widening housing wealth inequality across Spanish households. [Source: Bank of Spain, 2024]