The wealth of young households sinks by 75% in two decades due to difficult access to housing

The financial crisis and its impact on salaries, as well as the fact that housing prices have not stopped rising since 2014 have blocked the access of many young people to a home they own. There are reports that have put a figure on the impact of these obstacles. The last one points out that the median wealth of households whose head of family is under 35 years old has fallen by 75% in the last two decades.

It is one of the main conclusions of a study prepared by the Savings Observatory that the Mutuality Foundation presented this Thursday based on the data provided by the financial survey of families of the Bank of Spain, the living conditions survey of the INE and the Household Panel of the Tax Agency.

The time map offered by all these statistics draws an initial period in which the median gross wealth of the youngest families (including both their real estate and financial assets) increased by 50% between 2002 and 2008. It was in the middle of the real estate boom, just before the brick bubble burst with the financial crisis.

From then until 2022 That 75% sank as access to housing also collapsed. Wealth also decreases for other age groups in that same period, although the impact in their case is smaller. Specifically, for the group between 35 and 44 years old, wealth is 15% lower and it is also lower among those over 55 years old.

The deputy director of the Esade Economic Policy Center, Jorge Galindo, who presented the report, explained that only a third of households where the head of the family is under 35 years of age own an apartment, when that percentage It stood at 65% two decades ago. This implies that their net worth (the assets they own minus debts) is less than or around 5,000 euros.

Despite all of the above, home ownership (measured in this data source by its cadastral value) remains the traditional basis for wealth accumulationeven among the young population. In fact, real estate represents approximately 80% of the total gross value of property among this group, which only allocates 20% to financial assets.

This same age group has received a smaller increase in their income level than the rest, in a context in which the cuts after the financial crisis led them to enter the labor market in worse conditions. In this period, their purchasing power has continued to decrease as the cost of living has increased by 33%.

Spain is, in fact, the fourth country in the European Union where young people take the longest to emancipate themselves. They do so on average at 30.4 years old, according to the latest data available to Eurostat, the European statistics office. Another recent report from the IV Cofidis Observatory of Sustainable Economy at Home 2025 revealed how 45% of young people up to 31 years of age continue to live with their parents and among those who do manage to emancipate themselves, almost four out of ten continue to need external financial support, either from their parents or other family members, to be able to meet day-to-day expenses.

It is not surprising if you take into account that, according to the Appraisal Society, the price of a house is equivalent on average to 7.6 years of full salary, one year more than what was assumed a decade ago. The appraiser’s data confirms that the effort required to buy an apartment has increased over the last few years. The imbalance produced by an increase in housing prices faster than their salaries has caused 18.8% of young employed people to be at risk of poverty or social exclusion. Furthermore, among those who are unemployed, the poverty figure exceeds 50% and reaches 30% in the young population, warn the ‘Emancipation Observatory’ of the Youth Council.

“It is not easy for new generations to accumulate wealth and assets, something that affects their ability to access housing,” says Blanca Narváez, general director of Fundación Mutualidad. From his point of view, this reality “has deteriorated noticeably in recent years,” so the public policies aimed at improving the savings capacity of the new generations are essential.”