PSOE's big landlords: partner of Mínguez holds 30 rental flats

The PSOE rents out property too: the real estate portfolio of its leadership

Montse Mínguez, spokesperson for the PSOE's Federal Executive and a member of parliament, confirmed in October 2026 that her partner is legally classified as a large-scale landlord. The company linked to the family holding manages a network of around 30 flats and other properties for rent. When the press described the activity as a "vulture fund", Mínguez responded with the standard argument: it is a legal private company, it complies with the Housing Law and it pays its taxes. The problem is not the argument. It is the context.

Thirty rental flats are not an inheritance, they are a rental income business. And that business coexists, within the same party, with a discourse that has spent years branding large-scale landlords as public enemy number one of affordable housing. Nobody invents the contradiction: the spokesperson herself puts it on the table when she defends her partner's property network while her party legislates against that very model.

From Mínguez's partner to the boardrooms

Mínguez's case is the most visible, but not the only one. Former Secretary of State for the Economy David Vegara moved from the top ranks of the Socialist administration to the boards of financial institutions such as Banco Sabadell and to companies linked to banking restructuring and mortgage management. It is not an isolated case: former advisers to Secretaries of State and to the Economy and Finance ministries of Socialist governments have repeatedly been hired as senior consultants or board members by servicers such as Servihabitat, Anticipa, Haya Real Estate and Altamira, which collect mortgage portfolios and manage properties repossessed through foreclosures.

The revolving door knows no party colours, but here it has an awkward side effect: those who designed housing policy end up advising the ones who buy distressed loan portfolios. The official narrative talks about protecting tenants; the career paths of some of its authors talk about managing the other side of the counter.

Who declares how many properties in the PSOE

The asset registers reveal a scale ranging from a shared flat to a small empire. PSC-PSOE MP María Mercè Perea declares 13 properties, the highest number in the Spanish parliament. Mínguez owns 3 homes plus her partner's ~30. Murcia MP Joaquín Martínez Salmerón declares between 6 and 8 residential properties, including garages and plots. The vice-president of Castilla-La Mancha, José Manuel Caballero, declares 5 homes owned outright and rental income; the press attributes monthly rental earnings of 3.755 euros to him — precisely the man who warns about the housing crisis.

The list goes on: Housing Minister Isabel Rodríguez declares 3 homes and 7 properties in total; Óscar López, 4 properties; Félix Bolaños, 3 homes; Óscar Puente, 3 residential properties in Valladolid; Pedro Sánchez, 2 flats in Madrid owned at 50% with garages and rental income; and Emiliano García-Page, 2 homes. The minister who regulates renting also collects rent.

The Begoña Gómez case and the 2.200-euro flat

Also on the list is the information published about Begoña Gómez, who, according to those reports, charges two foreign university students 2.200 euros a month for a flat in central Madrid, on calle Prado, just a few metres from parliament. Sánchez's vvife would be the heir to several properties her father acquired, according to the same publications, with the profits from his businesses. The detail is ironic: while the government signs decrees to rein in landlords, the president's family appears on the landlord's side.

The bubble the narrative needs

The conclusion hovering over the whole affair is uncomfortable: some argue that the party needs housing scarcity to sustain its narrative while, at the same time, part of its leadership takes part in the very business that profits from that scarcity. No crimes need to be alleged, no conspiracies invented. It is enough to read the asset declarations and compare them with the speeches. Rich people invest in property; the problem is when the one complaining about vulture funds turns out to be, on their own scale, another landlord.

The usual doubt remains: how many of these portfolios are held through companies or front persons? The registers only show the tip of the iceberg. The rest, like the rental business itself, stays out of the spotlight.