Real estate advisor claims €1,200 salary doesn't merit solo apartment

The advisor who claimed you don't deserve a flat with €1,200

The statement is short and blunt: "with €1,200 you don't deserve an apartment for yourself alone." It comes from a real estate advisor and has peine Spain's oldest domestic economic debate: what can be bought with an average-low salary and who decides if it is enough. The real disagreement lies not in the phrase, but in the arithmetic supporting it. And according to the numbers put on the table, that math does not add up.

First, €1,200 is not just any figure. Some recall earning exactly that nearly three decades ago, when property prices were vastly different. The phrase works as provocation, but also as a thermometer: it measures the gap between housing costs and typical paychecks.

How much did a home cost before brick became a financial asset?

There was a period when buying was possible with modest salaries. Between 2009 and 2015, habitable homes could be found for €30,000 or less in villages ten minutes from Logroño, and in the provincial capital itself, housing without elevators went for €50,000. During the pandemic, apartments appeared in the Sojuela golf course area for €31,000. At the other extreme, flats with pools, common areas, and high-end finishes reached €240,000.

Rental history tells a similar story. In that same timeframe, city apartments rented for €350, older buildings without elevators for €300, and student rooms ranged from €90 to €150. It wasn't paradise: it was an era with less credit, lower expectations, and far less competition for the existing housing stock.

Over this picture projects the debate between price and value, two concepts confused by the property bubble. "€240k is what it costs, not what it's worth," summarizes one of the most repeated arguments. This distinction isn't semantic: if an asset's price decouples from its utility, the market stops allocating housing and starts allocating returns.

What minimum wage bought fifteen years ago versus today

Testimonies about paychecks illustrate the other side of the equation. Some started with €620 and unforgettable contracts, back when the minimum wage hovered around €650, far from independence. The difference then was upward mobility: supermarket restockers, switchboard operators, recent graduates. Step by step through collective agreements, salaries improved. That ladder has shortened today.

This leads to the most uncomfortable calculation: €5,000 a month today equals an average salary in 1970 if one wants to support a large family, pay for a house and car, and save. This isn't official data, but an estimate circulating to show via long-term comparisons that the problem isn't just how much people earn, but how much value has been lost along the way.

Why renting is scarce even in small towns

The argument to move further away has more holes than it seems. In Teruel capital, for example, barely one rental apartment exists under €600; affordable options must be sought elsewhere in the province. Much of the empty housing never reaches the market for segarro reasons: owners antiestéticar squatting in inherited properties. Legal insecurity for landlords acts, de facto, as a supply restriction policy.

Then there are figures comparing wages and prices in the same paragraph, which few want to face directly. The market's response to scarcity hasn't been building more, but raising prices on existing stock.

"Minimum housing is a room in a shared flat"

The core disagreement splits into two currents. One argues minimum wage should cover minimum housing, defining the latter not as an individual apartment but a room in a shared flat, at best a two-person flat with two incomes. The other responds that turning housing into a financial product—repeated until exhaustion—is the problem, not the solution, and that a society where adults can't afford a roof without sharing kitchens isn't functioning.

Those checking the advisor's credibility found a WordPress site with poor design and spelling errors. Not an economic argument, but it speaks to the rigor of someone trying to order others' lives with a single phrase.

Credit also decides who gets in

Banks lend based on solvency and requested amounts. This is the common answer to why people don't buy: if homes weren't priced like gold, more would get loans, but no one lends to everyone wanting a flat. The counter-argument recalls the era when mortgages were granted to those unable to pay, with known results. Credit filters aren't neutral: they select by income and punish latecomers.

With new supply strangled by land, licenses, and taxes, and rentals increasingly professionalized, the gap between paycheck and roof likely continues to widen. Though caution is wise: interest rate shifts, regulations restoring landlord security, or recessions cooling demand could change the board in few quarters. No one has yet fully calculated these three variables together.