Mario Vaquerizo Owns Six Madrid Properties, Plans Hotel

Six Homes on Gran Vía: Mario Vaquerizo’s Brick Investment

While half the country struggles to make ends meet, Mario Vaquerizo is doing different math. The Nancys Rubias singer revealed on Vicky Martín Berrocal’s podcast that he owns six homes on Madrid’s Gran Vía, the same street where he walked as a child to go to the movies on Saturdays. His strategy fits in four words: “I believe in bricks.” He said it with a laugh. A building half-conquered and a lingering question: investment or speculation on a basic good?

From One Flat with Alaska to Six on Gran Vía

Vaquerizo himself explains the origin: “I came here as a kid to the Gran Vía cinemas and spent my Saturdays here. It wasn’t so globalized then, and I said I wanted an apartment there. I bought the first one with Alaska, and now I have six.” The couple has been together for 26 years, and she is around 61, so that first purchase dates back quite far. Someone tried to date it and got tangled up in the subtraction: first it was said that Alaska was 45 when they met; the correction—she was about 35—left the error visible. At that age and with 26 years ahead, they could have had several children, as another user pointed out.

The Doorman’s Lodge as Dressing Room and the Building as Hotel

The plan is no longer just accumulating loose apartments. Vaquerizo has bought the doorman’s lodge of the building where he lives to turn it into a dressing room, and his stated goal is to acquire the entire block. “We want to keep the pink house for ourselves and make the rest a hotel,” he details. The roadmap includes the two ground-floor units and a life timeline: “When I’m 80, I won’t still be doing Nancys Rubias; I have to think about other things. It’s for future peace of mind.” Translated: a lodging business on one of Madrid’s busiest arteries.

The Pink, Blue, and Yellow Houses

The properties have names and their own decor, according to a forum user. The pink one is the usual residence; the blue one imitates a Las Vegas casino’s 24-hour restaurant and houses a nineteenth-century-style library; the yellow one is inspired by Versailles. Another family property came up in the conversation: a user asked if the pink flat might actually be Alaska’s mother’s apartment on Libreros Street, which is 140 square meters. Whether six homes constitute great wealth, as some skeptics argue, depends on where the sixth one is located.

Investment or Speculation? The Underlying Dispute

Here things heat up. One school of thought holds that buying housing in the center of a major city is one of the best possible operations and that money sitting idle in banks loses value due to inflation. Another responds that there is a difference between investing and speculating, and that real estate investment relies precisely on speculation. The nuance matters: this market is regulated, supervised, and partly monopolized by the State, and capital gains are taxed. One user gives the example of a 40-square-meter studio bought for €100,000, with €15,000 in renovations, rented at €950 per month. The opposite scenario is that of a generation unable to move out.

The British Precedent Cited in Comparison

Some bring up the UK case: when the right to buy social housing was legitimized, prices multiplied by six, and rents rose even further, leaving five million fewer state-owned homes on the market. Before that, it is argued, housing was much cheaper, and speculating only required the rich people’s houses. The conclusion drawn is uncomfortable: the board changed rules, and almost nobody noticed.

Why He Didn’t Become a Father

Vaquerizo explained the reason bluntly: “My vvife doesn’t have the maternal instinct. She loves kids, but she didn’t want to have a child. I would have liked to be a father because I think I would have been a good one, but if it wasn’t with my vvife, I didn’t want it.” He added a second, less solemn argument: he didn’t want to give up his weekend life with Nancys Rubias.

The Political Label That Trinc Him

His ideological profile also surfaced. His time in the youth wing of the PP (People’s Party) and a quote about his vote were highlighted: “If I say who I vote for, they’ll kick me out of Spain.” It is recalled that Alaska has declared in interviews that she is right-wing and that her family, with an Asturian father and Cuban mother, left the island after Castro’s arrival, according to various users, who reject the “pogre” label attached to them. Personal attacks and insults unrelated to the housing discussion were not lacking. And over a long stretch, the topic drifted toward Franco, the Popular Front, and national sovereignty. Nothing new under the sun.

In the end, the interesting question isn’t how many houses he has, but what he will do with them. Buying the doorman’s lodge is easy to understand. Convincing all the neighbors in a Gran Vía building to sell it to him and build a hotel is another level of negotiation, and there brick clashes with someone else’s property. How many of those six doors remain homes, and how many are already assets?