overcrowded homes have skyrocketed

In full housing crisis and with the registry growing thanks basically to immigration pushSpain has encountered a problem: it has more and more overcrowded homessomething that is usually considered an indicator of poverty and that basically tells us about housing “overcrowded”. The Eurostat data show that the Spanish ratio is still far from that of the EU or neighboring countries such as Italy, Germany or France, but even so the trend is revealing.

Overcrowded homes? Correct. EITHER “overcrowded”another way to identify them. Basically both labels refer to the same thing: homes in which so many people live that their inhabitants exceed the capacity for which they were ideally designed, at least for comfortable coexistence.

Said like this it may sound abstract, but both the INE as Eurostat They use some agreed criteria to recognize them. An “overcrowded home” is one that does not have a room per couple, for each tenant over 18 years of age or for each two young people of the same sex between 12 and 17 years old. There are more guidelines but they all point in the same direction. Thanks to them, technicians can then calculate their impact on society as a whole, the “overcrowding rate”.

And what do the statistics say? That in Spain this rate (the percentage of the population that lives in overcrowded homes) has not stopped growing in recent years. In fact the data from Eurostat show that in 2024 the indicator reached its highest level since 2004. If in 2010 the Spanish overcrowding rate was 5%, in 2020 it had risen to 7.6% and last year it stood at 9.1%. It may not seem like a high figure, but as remember The Confidential It is equivalent to millions of people (4.4) living in saturated environments.

Why is it important data? More than because of the data itself (which is not especially high), because of the trend. Spain is far from being one of the European countries with the most overcrowded homes. The rate is considerably higher in Italy (23.9%), Germany (11.5%), Portugal (11.2%) or France (10.4%). Even the average of the 27 EU countries (16.9%) clearly exceeds the Spanish figure; but our country does stands out for its evolution recent. And not for the better.

Between 2009 and 2024 the Spanish overcrowding rate increased by 75%, while in the EU as a whole and many other surrounding nations this same indicator decreased. What’s more, if we take into account the set of countries analyzed by Eurostat there is only one that has experienced an increase in the overcrowding rate greater than Spain: Netherlands, where it went from 1.7% to 4.6%. The palm in terms of volume goes to the Baltic countries.

Can it go further? Yes. Eurostat allows us to go further and that reveals to us that the rate of overcrowding does not affect the entire population equally nor does it have the same footprint throughout the country. As precise The Confidentialits incidence seems higher among those who live in rented houses (at market rents) than among those who live in their own homes, whether with or without a mortgage.

If we go down to detail we also see that it is easier to find foreigners (especially non-EU) living in overcrowded homes than people born in Spain and who, therefore, have a family support network. Among the latter (Spanish) the worst part goes to the young people.

A few months ago Foessa Foundation I already warned in a report on “households that are forced to share apartments with more people, return to parents’ or relatives’ homes to live with them, resort to so-called ‘nano apartments’ or that are unable to look for another home when the family increases.” According to their data, 3.4 million people (7%) live in “crowded conditions.”

What are the causes? That the footprint of overcrowded homes has increased in Spain responds to several factors, but it is undeniable that the phenomenon has coincided above all with two clear trends. The first is the gradual increase in price of the home. According to the Idealista portal, on average rents have increased by 10.9% in the last year, which places the residential square meter (m2) at the highest values ​​since at least 2006.

If we talk about the purchase and sale market, photography It’s not very different. This translates into stressed markets, fast pace and in which access is complicated to housing, especially among young people. In fact, for many, the only way to achieve home ownership is through a paternal donation.

And the other factor? Population growth. At the end of the first half of 2025, 49.3 million people lived in our country, “the maximum value in the historical series,” as recognizes the INEwhich also remembers that this increase has a clearly identified demographic driver: immigration.

The INE data does not leave room for many doubts. The number of people born in Spain has decreased, so the increase was mainly based on residents arriving from abroad. A revealing case is that of the Community of Madrid, which at the end of 2024 reached a historical milestone: surpassed one million people born in Hispanic America. 25 years ago there were not even 82,000.

Is it the only reality? No. Paradoxical as it may be, in recent years not only has the rate of overcrowded homes grown. Those on the opposite pole have also done so: single-person householdspeople who live alone.

This is clearly reflected in the Continuous Population Statistics published in July by the INE, which shows that in our country there are 5.54 million homes in which only one person resides. The data is already close to that of the most common household format, those made up of two people. Today they still remain in the lead, with 29% of the total, but are close to sole proprietorships (28%). The causes of the increase are in this case different: aging and cultural changes.

Images | Yuri Chernov (Unsplash)

In Xataka | In 2007, 20% of homes were bought by young Spaniards. Now that gap is being filled by another group: foreigners