Few indicators better reflect the loss of purchasing power of Spanish families than the one that arises after crossing the evolution of wages and rental prices. And it is that the latter have grown 17 times more than the first in just ten years, until today they are at their highest level in history and already taking 43% of the salary effort of citizens who live in rent.

Specifically, in the last decade, the price of rental housing has increased by 51.4% and

n Spain

, while the

Salaries have only done so by 3.4%

. If we look only at the last year, the average price of a rental home increased by 7.4%, and average wages fell by 0.7%.

This is clear after analyzing the evolution of the average salaries of the job offers of the InfoJobs platform and that of the prices of flats for rent of the real estate portal Fotocasa from 2012 to 2022.

"The rental price has been increasing at a frenetic pace in the last decade," warns María Matos, Director of Studies and Spokesperson for Fotocasa. And, after the recovery from the economic crisis in 2014, rental housing was promoted as the main housing option for citizens, "which caused demand to increase in the face of a very scarce supply," he recalls.

"Right now, we are facing

the highest rental prices in history,

caused by a very abrupt reduction in the volume of rental homes that has resulted in the situation of minimum stock," warns Matos.

But this historic growth in the price of rents has not had a remotely similar reflection in the remuneration of workers. "During the last 10 years the average salary in Spain has grown slowly after the economic recession of the period 2008-2013, with a behavior similar to the rest of the EU. However, we are far from the remuneration of countries such as Germany or France and Spanish workers have been the most affected by the loss of purchasing power, "says Monica Perez, Director of Studies at InfoJobs.

Price gap

The behavior of rental prices and wages has been uneven during this time if the data are analyzed territorially. Like this

Autonomous Communities

have experienced increases in rental prices ranging from 14.4% (Castilla-La Mancha) to 97.9% (Balearic Islands).

The relationship is therefore uneven. The

Average salary

Descended

in 2022 in seven communities (Balearic Islands, Canary Islands, Catalonia, Valencian Community, Galicia, Madrid and Basque Country,) compared to 2021, although the

Price of rental housing rose in all

and in five of the 17 it has exceeded 10%, (Balearic Islands, Canary Islands, Cantabria, Valencian Community, Madrid).

It should be noted that

The salary increase did not exceed 5%

in any region of the country. The Autonomous Communities that registered the highest increases between 2021 and 2022 were Castilla-La Mancha with 4.2%, followed by Cantabria with 4.0% and the Region of Murcia with 3.4%.

THE MOST AFFECTED AUTONOMOUS COMMUNITIES

Canary Islands

was the community most affected by the decline in wages in 2022. The average salary

went from 23,082 euros per year in 2021 to 21,897

euros last year, 5.1% less. To this is added that the price of rental housing rose by 16.9% compared to the previous year, so the Canary Islands went from paying 9.63 euros / m2 per month in 2021 to pay 11.26 euros / m2 per month in 2022.

Balearic

On the other hand, it was the one in which the most

increased the cost of

the price of rental housing in the last year, with 18.2%. The citizens of this community went from paying 7.16 euros / m2 per month in 2012 to pay 14.16 euros per month in 2022 for the square meter of a rental home (that is, 97.9% more). As for average wages, they fell by 1.2% in the last year.

On the other hand

Extremadura

heads the list of communities that registered a positive cumulative variation of wages in the last decade, with a percentage of 16.5, followed by Asturias with 13.3%, La Rioja accumulates 11.7% just behind the Basque Country with 11.3% and Aragon 10.7%.

On the contrary, those with the least variation were

Canary Islands

With 6%, the

Community of Valencia

with 5.9%, followed by

Madrid

with 3.3%,

Catalonia

2.9% and

Galicia

only 0.4%.

As for the price of rental housing,

Balearic Islands adds an increase of 97.9%

, followed by the Valencian Community, with 86.3%; Canary Islands, 85.9%; Catalonia, 68.3%, and Madrid, 61.8%.

On the other hand, those that have presented less increase have been

Castile-La Mancha

(

only adds up to 14.4%

), Asturias (with 26.8%), Extremadura (29.8%) and Aragon (34.4%).

VARIATIONS BY PROVINCES

In a comparison between 2021 and 2022,

Salaries fell in 18 of the 50 provinces

that analyzed the study and in

44 increased the price of housing.

The workers most affected by the decline in wages in 2022 were those in Las Palmas. The people of Palma have gone from receiving an average salary of 23,082 euros per year in 2021 to receiving 21,726 euros in 2022, that is, 5.9% less. To this is added, that in Las Palmas the price of rental housing increased by 16.6% compared to the previous year, and has gone from paying 9.96 euros / m2 per month in 2021 to pay 11.61 euros / m2 per month in 2022.

On the other hand, the province in which the price of rental housing has become more expensive in the last year is Malaga with 25.8%. The people of Malaga have gone from paying 10.12 euros / m2 per month in 2021 to paying 12.73 euros / m2 per month in 2022 for the square meter of a rental home (25.8% more). It should be noted that average wages only rose by 0.8% in 2022 (from 23,496 euros in 2021 to 23,693 per year in 2022).

Toledo

It is the only province that has benefited from the increase in the provincial average salary and the decrease in the price of housing in the last year (2022). On the other hand, in Palencia and León there were decreases in both salary and annual rental price.