The Spanish real estate market never ceases to surprise, offering increasingly sophisticated and sometimes unimaginable schemes. The latest trend to spark intense public and expert debate is the sale of individual rooms in apartments—not for rent, but as full-fledged ownership shares, allowing owners to maximize profits from every square meter. In major cities such as Madrid or Barcelona, listings have already appeared where the price for a single room can reach €100,000.
However, behind this appealing façade lies what many experts have already dubbed ‘misleading advertising.’ The key issue is that buyers are not acquiring a specific room with clearly defined boundaries, but rather a share of ownership in the entire apartment. This might be 20, 30, or 40 percent, but legally it does not guarantee exclusive rights to any particular room. Economic experts warn that such deals carry significant risks, as the future owner will have to share the living space with complete strangers who also own portions of the property. Any decisions—whether renovations or a potential sale—will require the agreement of all co-owners, which can turn life into a real nightmare.
According to analysts, such offers are not aimed at those looking for a home for themselves, but at speculators. The scheme for making a profit is simple and cynical. For example, a three-bedroom apartment is divided up by eliminating the living room, resulting in four units for sale—four shares. If the market price of the entire apartment is, say, 250,000 euros, selling it in parts artificially inflates the total to 320,000 euros. A price of 80,000 for a “room” seems affordable to many, especially young people or those with low incomes who cannot afford a full apartment. This creates an illusion of accessibility, behind which lie overpayment and a host of legal complications.
For investors, however, such an operation is a real goldmine. By purchasing a share for 80,000 euros, they can rent out the room for 700 euros a month, yielding a return many times higher than the standard 4-5% per year from renting out an entire apartment. This makes such investments extremely attractive to those seeking quick and high profits in the real estate market. At the same time, for an ordinary person dreaming of their own place, such a purchase turns into an unreasonably high price for a share of an apartment and questionable prospects of living together with unknown co-owners as neighbors.
This new phenomenon is a vivid example of how rising purchase and rental prices are becoming an unsolvable problem for some, while serving as a source of windfall profits for others. The sale of rooms is not a solution to the housing issue but rather another speculative strategy that may become a new headache for unsuspecting buyers drawn in by the apparent simplicity and affordability of such ‘housing.’
