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However, Jorge Galindo, director at the Esade centre for economic policy, says that available data makes it difficult to know exactly how many Spanish properties are owned by so-called “vulture funds” and being used for speculation.
He points to Bank of Spain figures from 2024 showing that only 8% of properties for rent are owned by companies.
Galindo says he concludes from the data available that there is not a notable accumulation of property to rent among a small number of owners in Spain.
“When it comes to explaining the rise in rentals, that is not the big cause,” he says. “What explains it is the shortage of supply compared to demand over recent years.”
The Bank of Spain appears to agree, and has estimated that the country has a housing shortfall of around 750,000 homes.
The institution’s deputy governor, Soledad Núñez, warned in September that by 2028 that could rise to one million.
There are 3.8 million empty properties in Spain, according to the National Statistics Institute (INE), but a large number of those are in depopulated rural areas and therefore have little relevance to the current crisis, which is most acute in urban hubs.
Other explanations for this high number include properties awaiting renovation, or legal disputes between family members who have inherited them.
Demographic changes play a major part in the imbalance between supply and demand.
Between 2021 and 2025, there were about 1.2 million new households in Spain, driven in great part by the arrival of migrants who have played a major role in the country’s recent economic growth.
However, house building has not kept pace, with fewer than half-a-million new homes during that period.
That was partly because Spain’s construction industry had shrunk in the wake of the Eurozone crisis, while the cost of materials rose substantially after Covid, and a lack of political consensus put legal obstacles in the way of building.
“It was not a priority for us to build new houses,” Galindo says. “But, once the demographic boom came, we realised how costly it was for us.”
He adds that short-term tourist accommodation, like Airbnb, which has been identified by both the Spanish government and many activists as a culprit, is likely to have had a more localised effect, pushing up prices in specific urban areas rather than having an overall impact.
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