Tents Erected at Puerta del Sol, 87-Year-Old Dies After Eviction: Spain's Housing Crisis Puts Electoral Politics on the Front Line

The tents at Madrid's Puerta del Sol have stood for more than a week. Hundreds of protesters have set up camp in the city center, aiming their anger at the culprits they identify: investment funds that treat housing as a speculative commodity. According to the BBC, the immediate trigger for this round of protests was the death of an 87-year-old woman — Mari Carmen Ábalos, who was evicted and faced steep rent hikes after her home was acquired by an investment firm. Although public pressure led to an invitation for her to return to her old residence, she was never able to do so and died in hospital on Wednesday.

The Ábalos case ignited long-simmering anger. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, of the Socialist Workers' Party, stated plainly when presenting emergency housing measures to parliament that he was legislating against those who treat housing merely as something to be speculated upon in the market. However, the bill was rejected by parliament, and Sánchez promptly announced a snap election, catapulting the housing issue from the streets into the heart of the electoral campaign.

According to the property platform Idealista, average rents across Spain have risen 84% over the past decade; in the southern city of Málaga the increase reached 113%, while nearby Marbella saw nearly 150%. Housing has become Spaniards' top concern, with multiple polls ranking it as the country's number one issue.

The crisis is not sustained by any single factor, but by multiple structural fault lines sliding simultaneously.

First, there is the collapse of supply. According to Bank of Spain data cited by the BBC, the country's housing shortage stands at approximately 750,000 units, and deputy governor Soledad Núñez has warned the gap could widen to one million by 2028. Behind this shortage lies the long-term contraction of the construction industry: after the European debt crisis, Spain's construction sector shrank sharply; during the COVID-19 pandemic, building material costs soared; and political consensus has been lacking on planning approvals — between 2021 and 2025, some 1.2 million new households were formed nationwide, while fewer than 500,000 new homes were built.

Second, there is the mismatch between vacant properties and demand. According to Spain's National Statistics Institute, there are 3.8 million vacant homes nationwide, but the majority are located in rural areas suffering severe population loss, while properties awaiting renovation or tied up in inheritance disputes also account for a substantial share — offering limited relief to urban housing pressure.

The third fault line lies on the wage side. According to a study by El País, after accounting for taxes, social security contributions, and inflation, the average Spaniard's real purchasing power has shrunk by 5% compared with a decade ago. Average monthly wages in the Madrid region stand at just €1,550, while according to Francisco Pardo, an 81-year-old retired taxi driver supporting the protests: no worker can afford to spend 75% or 80% of their wages on rent, because they still need to eat. Many workers earn less than €2,000 a month.

On the attribution of the crisis, there is a clear split within the movement. Protesters repeatedly use the term "vulture funds," and one of them is 19-year-old film dubbing student Jorge Moreno. According to his account to the BBC, large numbers of vulture funds and investment funds have bought up housing, relentlessly raising rents on the people living there until they are driven out. They have been turning housing into a business for a long time, but this is a predatory business that prevents Spaniards from having a decent home.

However, according to the BBC, Jorge Galindo, director of the Economic Policy Center at Esade Business School, cited data to offer a different assessment: 2024 Bank of Spain figures show that only 8% of rental properties are corporate-owned. Galindo argues that, based on available data, Spain does not exhibit significant concentration of rental housing in the hands of a few owners; in explaining rent increases, this is not the main driver — what determines the outcome is the shortage of supply relative to demand in recent years.

Public opinion, however, clearly leans toward broader government intervention. According to a survey by the Spanish Centre for Sociological Research, 72% of respondents support higher taxes on those owning more than 10 properties, 76% back restrictions on tourist short-term rentals, and 40% support the requisition of vacant housing.

For the movement directing its anger at vulture funds, the Ábalos case provides vivid moral material; but the supply shortages, building material costs, and policy reversals that Galindo identifies represent deeper structural pathology. Short-term rental platforms such as Airbnb have been singled out by both the government and activists as one of the drivers, but Galindo assesses their impact as more likely local — pushing up prices in specific neighborhoods rather than acting as a system-wide factor.

The failure of the Sánchez government to push through emergency housing legislation, together with the snap election that followed, means the crisis is unlikely to be eased through central legislation in the short term. The number of the 3.8 million vacant homes actually available to relieve urban pressure, the policy direction after the snap election, and the true scale of speculative capital in Spain's housing market — none of these has a definitive answer. The only certainty is that, in the tents at Puerta del Sol, the crisis has taken its seat at the center of national politics.