Vitam Regit Fortuna, non sapientia: the Madrid landlords' telling remark is pure gold

Buying an entire building in Madrid in the 1950s was possible for an uneducated worker because land was cheap and the city was growing outwards. That same profile today could not buy even a flat in Alcorcón without taking on a twenty-year mortgage.

## A building bought with money from a garment factory

The grandfather arrived in Madrid from **Brea de Aragón** with a suitcase. He set up a shoemaking business. Then another one, in garment making. His four daughters worked their whole lives in that factory. With that money, built from scratch, the family bought the entire building on **Sainz de Baranda** in the 1950s.

The Latin phrase «Vitam Regit Fortuna, non sapientia» —fortune, not wisdom, governs life— sums up well what came next. The son studied Law, became a lawyer and set up his office on the second floor, units C and D, of the same building. He married in 1999, had a daughter in 2002 and in January 2003 moved back into the building, sixth floor, unit D, right across from Maricarmen Abascal's flat.

The grandfather was not smarter than anyone else. He worked, saved and bought when a square metre in that area cost a fraction of what it costs today. The rise in housing prices in Madrid did the rest.

## What it would cost today to repeat that operation

An uneducated worker arriving in Madrid today cannot buy an entire building in Sainz de Baranda. Nor in the PAU developments of Carabanchel. Nor in Alcorcón or Getafe, municipalities to the south where most people need a mortgage and struggle for twenty years, if they manage to save the down payment.

The difference is not merit. It is the year and the place. In the fifties, Madrid was expanding and peripheral land was accessible to anyone with a small business. In **2024**, that same relative effort buys far less. Housing has become a financial asset and wages have not kept pace.

There is luck on both sides. The owners in Sainz de Baranda bought cheap and watched their asset multiply. **Maricarmen Abascal** took advantage of an outdated regulation that caps market prices. Both rode the same wave: the wave of time.

## Oklahoma gave away land free to whoever got there first

On **22 April 1889**, some **50,000 people** lined up at the border of Oklahoma to claim free parcels of federal land. When a cannon sounded at noon, they set off on horseback or by wagon. Each lot measured **160 acres**, half a square mile.

Some entered early, illegally, to claim the best land. That is where the state's nickname, the Sooner State, comes from. The colonisation accelerated the process that made Oklahoma the 46th state of the USA in 1907.

It was a territorial lottery. Whoever arrived first got free land. Today, a ranch of that size in the United States costs a fortune. Like in the film Far and Away, where a race decided who got the best plots. Fortune governed life then just as it governs the life of the grandfather from Sainz de Baranda: the moment and the place were everything.

This article describes a historical case and does not constitute financial or legal advice.