Rent eats up 70% of salary, forum user claims

No house, no car: a forum user estimates that 70% of the salary goes to rent

A 25-year-old writes bluntly: he argues that nothing that was possible decades ago is within his reach and suspects that nothing resembling his parents' life awaits him. His diagnosis isn't about a bad streak, but a sentence extending into old age. The response splits into two groups who haven't spoken in years: those claiming the economic and political framework has dismantled the ladder, and those insisting the ladder remains but nobody climbs it. In between, a participant sums up the mood with sarcasm: you'll have nothing, you'll pay for everything, but you'll be happy.

Why can't a 25-year-old buy a home?

A participant does a rough calculation: in a major city, rent takes around 70% of the salary. That leaves 30% for food, electricity, phone, and transport. With this split, a mortgage down payment never accumulates because there's nothing left to save.

The rental market has mutated in ways that worsen the problem. A participant says that in their area, three out of four offers are for rooms, and only one in four is a full apartment. Room prices range from €250 to €600, averaging between €375 and €400. Whole apartments are directly becoming products for a different type of tenant.

Cars aren't spared either. Some recall using the same vehicle for 25 years and note that an equivalent one costs half a minimum wage. The conclusion isn't relief: it's that cars have become inherited objects, not purchasable goods.

Those denying a problem exist have their own list: cheap video platforms, ubiquitous internet, and near-zero-cost entertainment. An argument that, taken to the extreme, admits housing and cars have fallen off the social contract while leisure has improved. It's not exactly a defense of the model.

Who is to blame? The generational clash

The initial question—what future Spain has after the older generation's legacy—receives an answer opening a new front. One side argues that 20 years ago anyone could start as an apprentice, sign a permanent contract within six months, and get a mortgage without stress; that this was lost due to regulatory changes, higher hiring ages, and an obsession with university degrees. Opposing them, others respond that women worked just as much 20 years ago as now, and nostalgia misjudges personal history.

Blame flies both ways, and neither side closes the gap. Older people hear that their wealth was built on rules they themselves deactivated. Young people hear that victim complexes don't pay rent. In the middle arises the suspicion, never proven, that there's a plan—the recurring mention of the Agenda 2030 and alleged promotion of renting over buying—behind it all. There's opinion on this, but no proof.

One behavioral data point stands out: if independent living is unattainable, the argument goes, it's rational to deprive oneself of nothing in leisure. Travel, venues, electronic gadgets. Spending today because tomorrow allows no hypotheses.

From permanent contracts to fixed-discontinuous

The circulating labor diagnosis is compact: either work in an unqualified position with minimum wage and a fixed-discontinuous contract, with no career path, or work in a big city with an acceptable salary evaporating in rent. In both cases, professional careers exist as words, not trajectories.

Comparison with the old scale—apprentice, indefinite contract, mortgage, children—fails on stability, not just amount. A salary that doesn't allow long-term commitments doesn't structure a life project. Here enters the classic counterargument: nobody promised anything, and nothing is owed. True yet sterile, because the issue isn't promises, but what one can afford.

Bologna Process and degrees that no longer guarantee salaries

Attacks on universities appear as their own chapter. Critics argue the Bologna Plan turned colleges into high schools with projects, partial exams, and mandatory attendance, incompatible with working while studying. That exams are trivial and curricula unchanged for thirty years. And that merit-based scholarships and Erasmus programs have become ends in themselves, not employability levers.

Generational contrast returns here: before, nearly everyone in peer groups worked while studying. Today, in the same environment, none do. It's neighborhood observation, not statistics, but points to something official averages miss.

Emigrate, civil service exams, or hustle: advice that isn't a plan

The repeated exit list is short and known: emigrate, take civil service exams (*oposiciones*), learn in-demand trades—plumbing, electrical work, welding—and study languages to do so abroad. Those saying this at 35 lament trying the same for a decade without result. Those unable to move due to age or illness only ask young people not to waste their lives. Advice in both cases: wake up.

Patience remains an option. One account defends that at 25 you have nothing, and at 35 quite a bit more, without starting businesses or trinc guru formulas, just through accumulated normal work. It's the only response offering trajectory instead of escape. And it's the least endorsed.

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Disagreement isn't in numbers: it's in causality direction. If blockage comes from prices, wages, or political decisions two decades ago, solutions change completely. Nobody has put the missing number on the table—the figure showing how much salaries must rise or rents fall for homeownership to return within workers' reach. Without that number, discussion circles exactly where it started.