It partially boils down to Spain having very little new construction. In a little eastern european country with 10 million people like Hungary there are roughly

It partially boils down to Spain having very little new construction. In a little eastern european country with 10 million people like Hungary there are roughly just as many new developments on the market as in a big country like Spain, with 40M population. Hungary: more than 2k new houses, and there are more than 5k new apartments to buy. https://ingatlan.com/lista/elado+haz+uj-epitesu https://ingatlan.com/lista/elado+haz+uj-epitesu In Madrid province, there are around 700 new houses+apartments to buy https://www.idealista.com/en/venta-obranueva/madrid-provincia/ https://www.idealista.com/en/venta-obranueva/madrid-provinci... This problem is now so big local governments are now building new houses. The rental issues are interesting because for example in Germany, the rental protections are very similar, maybe even more protecting than Spain. (Interestingly the prices are also lower in Germany, in Madrid prices start from 650+utilities, in Munich, 500+utilities)