A bedroom overlooking Barcelona city. Credit: Lina Kivaka, Pexels
With Spain’s housing crisis pricing many out of the property market, a growing number of residents are turning to an unexpected solution: buying individual rooms.
A Barcelona-based start-up, Habitacion.com, has 22,000 people on a waiting list to purchase a share in a flat, just one room at a time.
Young Spaniards buy individual rooms to escape rising rental costs
Skyrocketing rent and unaffordable mortgages have led to a new trend in cities like Valencia, Madrid, and Barcelona. Instead of renting, people are now buying their own bedrooms within shared flats, splitting ownership of the common areas.
Habitacion.com, founded in 2023 by Oriol Valls and Anna Bedmar, is pioneering this idea. The company renovates apartments and sells them off room by room, allowing co-owners to hold a legal share of the whole property, including communal spaces.
“It takes a young person, on average, between 15 and 20 years to save up for the down payment on their first home,” said CEO Oriol Valls, as reported by Telecinco News.
From €50,000 for a 12m² room
A 12-square-metre room in central Valencia can now go for around €50,000, according to Telecinco News. Buyers like Jorge, one of Habitacion.com’s early adopters, now own a piece of property and share a kitchen, bathroom, and lounge with others.
“It takes a long time until you have the money to make a down payment and access an apartment,” Jorge explained, adding that rising rents left him with few options.
The price of a room depends on features like private bathrooms or balconies. According to El País, most rooms cost between €60,000 and €80,000, often financed through loans rather than paid upfront.
Legally, buying a room means co-owning a proportion of the flat. It’s called proindiviso.
The deed is signed before a notary and registered, just like any other property purchase. Owners can resell their rooms, with fellow co-owners getting first refusal. Habitacion.com even offers a buyback option.
“For example, if a user pays a monthly rent of €450 for a room, that’s €5,400 a year. As a co-owner, with that same monthly payment, they’ll be generating a property asset. Within five years, they could earn more than €20,000 in returns if they want to sell the room,” said co-founder Anna Bedmar, as quoted in El País.
Habitacion.com ended 2024 with €3.4 million in total sales and €1.4 million in revenue. While not yet profitable, it recently closed a €1.3 million investment round, led by Demium Capital with other venture capital firms and angel investors onboard.
According to Telecinco News, the startup plans to use this funding to improve its tech platform using AI and expand further into southern Europe.
Spain now has over 27 million homes, yet average earners are increasingly shut out of ownership. Housing policy expert Javier Burón told Telecinco that the current system is not addressing the basic needs of people with average salaries and incomes.
Would you buy a room to get on the property ladder, or is this a sign that the market’s completely broken?
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