Housing has become a major issue this year and will continue to be so in 2025.

Housing has become a major issue this year and will continue to be so in 2025. | Majorca Daily Bulletin reporter

Humphrey CarterPalma30/12/2024 12:22
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The Balearics, Madrid and Murcia are among the OECD regions where housing costs proportionally more, although people in California, Dublin and, in particular, Jerusalem still have to spend a larger share of their income. In a report published on regional differences, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) explains that on average households have to spend around 20% of their income on housing, although this percentage can more than double in some urban areas.

In Spain, the average is 26.3%, although there are three autonomous communities where the 30% mark is exceeded: the Balearic Islands (30.4%), Murcia (30.2%) and Madrid (30%). Then comes Catalonia (27.1%). At the other extreme, the autonomous regions for which there is data and in which the economic effort for housing is lower (this includes credit for the purchase or rental, as well as maintenance costs such as water, electricity, gas and other fuels) are Galicia (20.3 %) and Asturias (20.5 %).

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In other countries, this cost can rise to just over half of disposable income, as in Jerusalem (39.7 % on average in Israel), 36.3 % in the urban area of Geneva (Switzerland) or 35.3 % in California (USA). The authors of the study point out that over the last ten years, house prices in the OECD have risen much more in large cities (68 % in those with more than 1.5 million inhabitants or 50 % in those with between 250,000 and 1.5 million) than in small cities (37 % in those with 100,000 to 250,000 inhabitants and 16 % in those with less than 100,000).

This means that the price in urban areas with more than 1.5 million inhabitants is 68% higher than in cities with between 250,000 and 1.5 million inhabitants and 86% higher than in cities with less than 100,000 inhabitants. The gap has grown on average by 20 percentage points over the last five years.