John Culatto
MALAGA is the now the fifth most expensive province for buying homes in Spain in comparison to wages, latest figures indicate.
The place where the highest proportion of wages that has to go towards home ownership in the country is the Balearic Islands.
Madrid, Gipuzkoa in the Basque Country, and Barcelona precede Malaga in this latest study.
The alarming figures follow studies by estate agent Fotocasa and employment agency Infojobs.
They reveal that a person would have to contribute an average of 9.4 years of their full wage to pay for their mortgage of an 80m2 flat.
This is nearly a third more than the Andalusian average of 6.3 years for the same sized flat.
The average price per metre of flats rose to €2,774 per square metre in Malaga province at the end of 2022.
But average wages in Malaga have stagnated, the Infojobs study concluded.
At the end of 2022, it was €23,693 in Malaga and a just a little less for the rest of Andalucia.
Meanwhile, the cost of buying a flat in the rest of Andalucia is nearly €1,000 less than Malaga.
Another study by property evaluators Tinsa concluded that Malaga residents pay about 40% of their wages toward their mortgage.
Factoring in the national 5.7% inflation, it gives Malaga residents a 6.4% drop in spending power.
“We are facing the greatest salary effort that citizens have made to pay for their housing,” said María Matos, Director of Studies and spokesperson for Fotocasa
“The reason is clear.
“The cost of housing has never become so expensive in such a short period of time.
“The change in monetary policy with the rise in interest rates has led to an increase in demand, encouraged by getting good mortgage conditions before rates rise even more.
“This rage to buy has caused the imbalance between supply and demand to be greater, which is why it pushes prices towards tension.”
Even though Malaga is also one of the leading constructors of new flats, real estate prices remain high with continuing demand.
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