Buying a home in Madrid requires 15 years of gross salary
The effort to access property in the capital has soared, making it, along with the Balearic Islands, the most inaccessible region in Spain.
By Carlos Ruiz de la Fuente
••3 min read
IA
Spanish house key on euro coins with the Madrid skyline in the background.
Purchasing an 80-square-meter home in the Community of Madrid now demands 15 years of gross salary, an effort that has increased by 34 months in just one year, according to 2025 data.
Residents of the Community of Madrid have seen the effort required to access homeownership drastically increase. In 2025, 180 months of gross salary, equivalent to 15 years, were needed to purchase an 80-square-meter house. This figure represents a significant rise from the 12.2 years required in 2024, translating to an additional 34 months of salary dedication in just twelve months.
The average price of second-hand housing in the Community of Madrid closed 2025 at 5,206 euros per square meter, 21.7% more than the previous year. This places the total cost of an 80-square-meter home at 416,454 euros. Concurrently, the average gross salary in the region stood at 27,680 euros annually (2,307 euros gross per month), experiencing a slight drop of 1% compared to the prior fiscal year.
This mismatch between rising property prices and stagnant salaries positions Madrid and the Balearic Islands as the autonomous communities where access to ownership is most challenging in Spain. Nationally, the average effort to buy a home reached 8.4 years of gross salary in 2025, compared to 7.1 years in 2024, marking the highest level since records began.
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"Spain is going through the worst housing accessibility crisis in its history. Never before have citizens had to dedicate so many years of their salary to buy a home. And the most alarming thing is that the national average already reflects a critical situation, because in the most strained markets, like Madrid or the Balearic Islands, the effort practically doubles. Housing has ceased to be accessible and is increasingly difficult for millions of families to reach."
The Balearic Islands lead the inaccessibility ranking with 15.1 years (181 months) of salary required to acquire a home, with an average price per square meter of 5,267 euros in December 2025 and an average annual salary of 27,967 euros. Following Madrid (15 years) are the Basque Country and Canary Islands (10.1 years each), and Catalonia (9.4 years). In contrast, Castilla-La Mancha (4.1 years) and Extremadura (4.2 years) are the most affordable communities.
At the provincial level, Jaén stands out as the most affordable, requiring only 3 years of gross salary to buy an 80-square-meter home, with an average price of 1,038 euros per square meter and an average gross annual salary of 28,062 euros. It is followed by Ciudad Real (3.2 years), Teruel (3.3 years), and Toledo (3.7 years).
Data from InfoJobs indicates that the average gross salary in Spain in 2025 was 27,336 euros annually, a 1% increase from the previous year. However, this salary increase is insufficient to offset the rapid rise in property prices across most of the territory.
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"The purchase of a home continues to be one of the main economic challenges for workers. Salaries offered on InfoJobs maintain a positive trend with an average of 27,336 gross euros annually. However, the 1% increase recorded in 2025 falls far short of the rise in housing prices. This growing gap has a direct impact on citizens' ability to develop long-term projects, as it forces them to dedicate more years of work and savings to access homeownership."
