house

In London more and more people lose money when they sell their house. The question is whether it is the canary in Europe’s mine

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Located north of the Thames, Tower Hamlets is one of the districts most emblematic from London. In fact, it covers a large part of the East End, the historic center of the capital. For years (like most of the city) it also represented something else: a juicy market for those who wanted to invest in housing and achieve high returns. Not anymore. In 2025 about 30% Of the owners who got rid of their homes in that neighborhood (mostly apartments) had to do so for less money than they paid at the time. And it’s not just something that happens in Tower Hamlets. What has happened? That in London housing is no longer an infallible business. This is suggested at least by the latest study published by Hamptons, which reveals that in 2025 Londoners were the Britons most likely to lose money from the sale of their properties. Even more than its neighbors in the northeast of the United Kingdom, who have spent years leading the ranking. “Rising London house prices are no longer the safe bet they once seemed,” concludes the report, which is supported by the Property Registry. What do the figures say? that last year 14.8% of people Those who sold their home in London did so for less money than they originally paid. It may seem like a modest percentage, but it is striking for several reasons. To begin with because it is the largest in the entire United Kingdom. The national average is 8.7% and there are British regions where this indicator is much lower, such as Wales (6.2%), East Midlands (6.7%) or West Midlands (6.9%). London has effectively ousted Nort Easth, which had dominated the sales ranking with losses for the last decade. Is Tower Hamlets a unique case? No. Tower Hamlets is the London district where the trend is best appreciated, but is not the only one in which a significant proportion of homeowners (28.2%) have lost money by getting rid of their homes. In the City, 26.2% of sellers closed transactions in “red numbers”, in Kensington & Chelsea 22.4%, in Westminster 22.1% and in Hammersmith & Fulham 20.8%. Curiously, in the cheapest district of London, Barking & Dagenham, only that indicator is much lower: 5.3%. “In some cases, even homeowners who bought a decade ago risk getting back less than they paid, something almost unthinkable in 2015. And for many the sums are small,” the study insists. “In the coming years it is likely that more sellers will have missed out on the price boom that London experienced between 2012 and 2016, as they bought at the peak of the market.” Is there more data? Yes. The Hamptons report raises some interesting ideas. For example, most of the sales with losses (close to 90%) were carried out by apartments. If we talk about houses, the photo is somewhat different. Hamptons technicians recognize that in 2025 the average seller in London pocketed 172,500 pounds more than what they originally paid when purchasing their home, but they insist on the increase in sales at a loss: if in 2019 they represented 5.9%, in 2025 “red” operations already represented 14.8%. Is it the only report? No. Over recent months, more analyzes have been published showing that the London property market is not going through its best moment. There is talk of a price drop of 5.1% at the end of 2025 (which takes the market even further away from the 2022 data) and even from a sluggish prime housing market that will not rise until at least 2028. “In London, the growth of house prices is no longer a safe bet,” he explains to Financial Times Aneisha Beveridge, Hamptons manager. There is studies which show that prices are declining in half of London’s neighborhoods, leaving a “two-speed” market: that of the most expensive (and volatile) areas and the cheapest, which has demonstrated greater resilience. In December Bloomberg warned that homes worth more than two million run the risk of depreciating, losing almost 5% of their value in one year. What is the reason? The big question. When explaining the London trend the analysts they point out several factors. One of the main ones is the regulatory change, marked by the end of discounts to the purchase of housing and a greater penalty for the purchase of second homes and houses as investments. The authorities have also focused on the prime segment, rethinking the status nom-dom for large foreign fortunes and raising local taxes for the most expensive properties. Added to the above is the influence of Brexit, the exorbitant prices that London reached in 2022 or how difficult it is for families to access the market, partly because the cost of rent neutralizes the ability to save. The question that some are already made is whether London is an isolated case or should be understood as a canary in the mine for other European capitals. Image | Benjamin Davies (Unsplash) In Xataka | Housing is getting so expensive that in the United Kingdom there are already people opting for plan B: living on boats

In Spain, getting a house has become an impossible mission. There are those who are receiving them as a donation in exchange for taking care of dogs

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It happened in Madrid. ‘Subject A’ barely has contact with his children but feels enormous affection for his dogs, so he decides to reach an agreement with ‘subject B’: he will donate his home in usufruct if he agrees to take care of his pets. If ‘Subject B’ complies, no problem. If the animals end up unattended, you risk having the donation revoked. That of ‘A’ and ‘B’ is just one case commented a few days ago to The Newspaper (EPE) by a lawyer with an office in the capital, but it reflects a larger phenomenon: the increase in donationsincluding conditional ones. And it makes sense. What has happened? that in full housing crisiswith rental prices and m2 climbing to levels that remember to those of the brick ‘boom’, each time is more common meet donation signatures in notarial offices. Money is donated. And homes are donated. It’s nothing new. The trend has been going on for some time now. some time and it is part of a broader phenomenon that we have been talking about for some time, the ‘Great transfer’. What is striking is that just revealed EPE: not only do donations in general skyrocket, so do ‘conditional’ donations, those in which the agreement is subject to a series of previously agreed upon requirements. Donations with conditions? Exactly. Tax authorities defines them as agreements by which the donation is conditioned to certain requirements. “For it to be valid, the donee must be able to execute the condition or it must be an event with a high probability of occurring,” clarify the Treasury, which thus differentiates it from other types such as ‘pure’ or ‘remunerative donation’. Its dynamic is therefore simple: donor and donee reach an agreement on which the donation is conditional. It is fulfilled, perfect. If not fulfilled, the good returns to the donor. That is the logic, although in practice there are certain nuances. For example, the donation does not always have to take place at the same time. The donated property can be delivered when the agreement is signed or left in suspense waiting for the agreed conditions to be met. What do people agree? EPE has spoken with several offices in the Community of Madrid and has come across agreements of all kinds. For example, a grandmother who donates her house to her granddaughter in exchange for her finishing her degree and studying a master’s degree, donations to caregivers or (probably the most striking of all) transfers that are conditional on the care of animals. “There are cases in which the house is donated with the condition that the recipient takes care of their pet for as long as it is alive,” clarifies Manuel Hernándezby Vilches Abogados. “This guarantees (the donor) that if they die, their pet will be taken care of. It can also be done by inheritance, with a conditional legacy.” Is it just theory? No. As an example, Hernández cites the case with which this report began: a man from Madrid decided to donate his home to a friend in exchange for her taking care of his three dogs. “She had little connection with her children and was very fond of animals, so she donated her house in usufruct to a younger friend, if she would take care of her dogs. If this condition was not met, the revocation procedure could be initiated,” says the expert. The phenomenon is increasingly common and part of the “humanization” of pets. Is that easy? In practice, the agreements have fine print. It I remembered recently in COPE the lawyer Carolina Florez de Quiñones, who recognizes this type of conditional transfers, just like those directed to caregivers of the elderly; but he warns: “No one can leave alive what he cannot leave dead.” What does that mean? That the will of the person who donates is one of the key factors to take into account, but not the only one. Another is forced heirs. A living donation that damages your ‘legitimate status’ may end up being considered ‘unhelpful’. Are there more formulas? Yes. Another formula that has become popular is the donation of housing in bare propertywhich basically consists of transferring ownership of an asset without the rights of use and enjoyment. If we are talking about an apartment, that means that the donor can pass it on to his children, grandchildren, nephews or whoever he considers, but without giving up the usufruct of the home for the rest of his life. That is, the donor continues to enjoy the apartment as if nothing had changed, which implies that he or she can live in it or even rent it. Have they increased that much? The donations, definitely. In October the General Council of Notaries (CGN) published a report which shows that between 2017 and 2024 housing donations skyrocketed by almost 68%: from 32,623 they went to 54,735. During the first half of 2025 alone, it counted 27,000 donations. At the same time, notaries recorded an increase in inherited homes. The backdrop is the rising cost of housing and the difficulties of access for young people, which partly explains why grandparents, parents, uncles… come to the ‘rescue’ of the new generations, facilitating their access to the market. What do the notaries say? “The data show a clear increase in donations and inheritances of homes from older people to the following generations,” confirms the CGN. In case there were any doubts about its growing weight, the group also remembers that the number of inherited and donated homes in 2024 would be equivalent, overall, at 64% of purchase and sale operations. Not only housing is donated. Money is also transferred from the pockets of grandparents or parents to grandchildren/children to make it easier for them to get a mortgage. The question remains as to how many of these donations come with conditions. Images | Pam Mene (Unsplash), Yen Vu (Unsplash) and General Council of Notaries In Xataka | There are rich people so bored with their … Read more

If your renovation is a pain, think about the house that cost 120 times more than its original cost: a masterpiece

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Renovate a house It is usually an exhausting experience: budgets that skyrocket, structural unforeseen events, provisional solutions that end up being permanent. Now imagine that this home is not just any apartment, but one of the great icons of the 20th century, visited by millions of people and examined to the millimeter by historians, engineers and conservators. Then the reform stops being a domestic problem and becomes a continuous battle against time. Thus an icon was born. The assignment that changed a career The year was 1934 when Edgar J. Kaufmann commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright a weekend house next to a waterfall in Bear RunPennsylvania. The architect then took an unprecedented decision: He decided not to look at the water from afar, but to literally build on it. The work, built between 1936 and 1938, almost immediately became in a manifesto of organic architecture: concrete terraces that float over the waterfall, local stone walls that sprout from the rock, spaces that open to the forest as if the house were an extension of the landscape. By January 1938 he already occupied the same cover of time and critics proclaimed it one of the great masterpieces in the history of architecture, one capable of reconcile modernity and nature in an unforgettable image. It happens that there is always a “but” in a work, and one like this was no different. Yes. That perfect image had a disproportionate price from day one. The original cost exceeded the planned budget almost four times and reached approximately $155,000 of the time, a figure equivalent to about 3.3/3.5 million current dollars. Added to this were Wright’s own fees and the expenses derived from a complex execution in a unique but remote environment, so that the project was born already financially stressed. What should be a weekend country house became a total commitment, technical and economic, to materialize a radical vision. And we come to the material that has given the work its name, although it almost took everything away. The gesture that made Fallingwater world famous, its large columnless cantilevers over the waterfall, was also its Achilles heel. During the work, the engineer in charge of concrete warned that only eight reinforcing bars had been placed on a main beam and that, for a span of that length, it should have been duplicated steel. However, Wright rejection the objections, arguing that adding more reinforcement would damage the structure and demanding absolute confidence in their judgment. The contractor, without warning, decided to increase the steel anyway. Even so, when removing the formwork the first cantilever deformed more than four centimeters and was left with a permanent arrow that today translates into a visible slope close to two degrees. And the cracks came before inhabiting it The problems were neither theoretical nor late. Even before the Kaufmann family moved in in 1937, there were already documented leaks and cracks on the concrete parapets. As the decades passed, some balconies began to sink. more than 20 centimeters with respect to its original position, and in the nineties engineers found that the cantilevers they had failed technically and required urgent reinforcements to avoid greater risk. The house that seemed to defy gravity rested on a more fragile balance than the iconic photograph suggested. If the waterfall was the soul of the project, the rain and snow were its nightmare. Flat roofs, terraces that function as roofs for lower rooms and masonry walls holes filled with rubble They made it easier for water to find invisible paths into the interior. So much so that since the 1940s the house was nicknamed with irony by its owners for the number of buckets needed to collect leaks, and almost ninety years later an intervention of 7 million dollars intended to seal covers, inject more than a dozen tons of grout on the walls and improve waterproofing. It didn’t matter the crazy price that had been used previously, many leaks they returned with time. The overhang of the living room seen from the bridge leading to the house At the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st, a structural restoration was undertaken that would be decisive: the beams were drilled and introduced steel cables post-tensioned to “pull” the concrete and recover part of its original position. That operation prevented the sinking will progressbut it did not eliminate the need for ongoing maintenance. To give us an idea, from 1937 to today, the preservation of Fallingwater has already exceeded 19 million dollars, a figure multiplied by about 120 times the initial cost of construction and which illustrates the extent to which keeping the icon standing has been more expensive than its own creation. In 1963 the Kaufmann family donated the house to the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, which opened it to the public the following year. Since then, more than 6 million of people have visited it, and its status as a National Historical Monument and UNESCO World Heritage Site consolidated his status as one of the masterpieces of the 20th century. Paradoxically, the same audacity that generated the cracks, deformations and leaks is what gave it its symbolic force: Fallingwater, or The Falling House, embodies the rhetoric of the American dream of merging with nature and dominating it at the same time, even when that ambition required paying an enormous structural and economic price. The history of this icon shows that architectural genius is not exempt material risk. Wright’s possibly exaggerated authorship, his conviction towards engineers and contractors, and his willingness to take concrete further of prudent limitsproduced a work that was both sublime and problematic. If you will, it is also an imperfect building that has needed decades of disagreements, revisions and reinforcements to remain standing. And precisely for that reason, more than a frozen postcard over a waterfall, Fallingwater It is proof that great works are born from the tension between vision and reality, and that even masterpieces can always be, literally, at the edge of the … Read more

Living for free in your parents’ house does not imply a donation of the home

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He house price It is one of the main obstacles to the emancipation of young people in Spain. According to data According to the Spanish Youth Council, only 15.2% of young people can afford to live outside the family home. Of them, 57.9% do so in rented apartments and a third of these young people share a flat with other young people to be able to bear the expenses. In this context, it is not strange to find people over 30 years old living with their parents. However, according to have confirmed the Ministry of Finance to VerifyRTVEit is false that living for free in your parents’ home, or in “any property of your parents”, can be considered “as a donation”. The Treasury makes it clear: there is no donation. Both from the Ministry of Finance like from the union of Technicians of the Ministry of Finance (GESTHA) point out that there is no tax or legal change that penalizes children for residing in the family home. Sources from the Ministry of Finance confirmed to damn.es that “there have been no legal changes or changes in the orientation of administrative actions since the IRPF existed, nor has it ever been considered a fiscal risk.” Carlos Cruzado, president of the GESTHA union, explained to RTVE that no taxes or duties apply additional taxes for the simple fact that an adult shares a home with his or her parents. Donation is a change of ownership, not use. The reason why no charge is made is because, simply, when a child lives with his or her parents, no transfer of assets occurs. The consensual use that is made of it changes, not the ownership. This change of use between family members without financial compensation does not fit into any of the assumptions of the Inheritance and Donation Taxso neither parents nor children they must pay that tax. The professor of Financial Law Rosa María Galán pointed to damn.es that, in the case of children without economic resources to survive on their own, the article 142 of the Civil Code obliges parents to cover the support, housing, clothing and medical care of their children. There is no need to argue for free coexistence since providing it is a legal obligation. It even applies to second homes. This same logic applies even when parents and children do not live in the same property, but, for example, the parents live in the primary home, and the children in a second residence owned by the parents. According to Cruzado, the Treasury “understands that there may be a free transfer and does not allocate a return at market value.” In this case, the parents are taxed the same as if the home were empty due to the imputation of real estate income in personal income tax, the same obligations that already exist. for having a second residence without regular use. In this case, the owner of the home must pay a tax of 2% of the cadastral value of the property, and in some cases is reduced to 1.1%. That is, what is taxed is the condition of second home ownership, not the fact that children live in the home or not. The transfer of use is not a donation: the distinction that changes everything. As and as explained José María Salcedo, managing partner of the tax firm Salcedo Tax Litigation to Idealistiche article 6.5 of the Personal Income Tax Law establishes a presumption of onerousness. This means that the Treasury tends to assume that any transfer has a price. However, this presumption admits evidence to the contrary, and the most common instrument to prove it is the bailment contracta document that formalizes the loan of the property without financial consideration and that, according to Cruzado, the Treasury “does not usually carry out these checks”, although it serves as a guarantee to justify “free of charge the right to use someone else’s property for a certain period of time.” In Xataka | There is a less painful solution so that an inheritance does not become a ruin for the heirs: renounce it Image | Pexels (Kampus Production)

A remote town in Soria attracted neighbors by offering them a house and bar. Two months later they left due to the cold

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Beratón is a small municipality in Moncayo, province of Soria, which stands out for its high altitude (the largest in the province) and reduced census (38 inhabitants, according to the INE). However, in recent weeks it has left one of the clearest examples of how difficult it is to keep pace with the depopulation of the ’emptied Spain’. A few months ago, its City Council tried to attract residents by offering a “business + housing” combo that managed to awaken the interest of a young couple from Cuenca. They didn’t even last three months. The cold and the drop in activity have led them to pack their bags again. It could be just an anecdote, but it illustrates how complicated it is to reactivate rural Spain. Even when there is good disposition and ideas. What has happened? That Beratón (Soria) has left one of those stories that, although a priori may seem simple and anecdotal, reflect much more complex trends. In May, the municipality made the news because its City Council launched an unusual announcement: whoever agreed to manage the town’s tavern would have at their disposal a newly renovated house. Business and housing guaranteed. “All kinds of facilities will be provided,” the mayor insistedCarmen Lapeña, on the SER Soria network, who also recalled that Beratón was a popular point for hikers and groups who came to Moncayo to spend the day. And it worked? Yes. The offer attracted a familya young couple from Cuenca. His arrival was doubly good news: not only did he swell Beratón’s meager census, but in theory it would serve to reactivate the town’s main point of socialization. The joy, however, was short-lived. A few days ago our colleagues from Straight to the Palate revealedciting SER, that the new residents have not lasted even two months there. They packed their bags at the end of December, which does not prevent the mayor from continuing to think about attracting new blood for the town. Of course, starting in March, when temperatures begin to rise and the town regains activity little by little. Why are they gone? The couple’s decision is actually little surprising. To start Beratón it becomes a cold place in winter, with temperatures that often fall below zero. “The winter months are very hard,” acknowledges the councilor, who for that reason rules out trying to bring in new families during January and February, “bad times.” However, the weather is only part of the problem. After all, there are other icy locations (even more than Berathon) who have no difficulties in attracting hoteliers. Its other big problem is depopulation and especially the ups and downs of the census. Although the INE has registered there 38 inhabitantsactually that’s just a reference. Although during the summer months the town welcomes more than 300 residentsin the harshest months of winter it is left with a handful of inhabitants stable, just half a dozen. The figure is so low that it is difficult to maintain the profitability of a business, even if it is a bar. “The days are very short, very cold… sad. People come, but punctually.” Is it a unique case? The story of Beratón includes some of its own ingredients, but its underlying problem is not very different from that faced by other parts of ’emptied Spain’ that find it difficult to stop the population drain. If at the beginning of this century there were in Spain 934 municipalities With less than 100 inhabitants, in 2021 that figure had risen to 1,379. Of the slow emptying of ’emptied Spain’ echoed before the pandemic the Spanish Rural Development Network (REDR) and the problem does not seem to be subsiding. The latest data from the INE show that the club of localities with less than a hundred registered residents has added thirty municipalities in the last five years, remaining at over 1,400 as of 2025. Is it that complicated? It seems so. In Galicia we found other cases which, although again they may seem anecdotal, help to better understand the general trend. There are rural town councils there that are taking over businesses such as gas stations and stores to prevent them from closing, which would be equivalent to running out of services and further accelerating their decline. It may seem excessive, but a recent report from the Consello de Contas warns that in Galicia there are almost a hundred of towns in ‘danger of extinction’, many of them located in A Coruña and Lugo. In Spain, in fact, there are already ‘ghost towns’ for sale. Why’s that? Due to a combination of factors: rural exodus, poor communications, difficulties in finding employment or establishing a long-term life project… For a time the pandemic, reconnection with nature and teleworking seemed to clear the future of some towns, but that ‘renaissance’ it didn’t always stick. In the background there is another problem, much more complex: housing. It is one thing that when we visit rural areas of Spain we see empty houses and quite another that those same properties are available for people interested in taking advantage of them or are habitable. How to solve it? The big question. In rural areas there are also second residencetourism-oriented housing, constructions whose ownership has become blurred over the decades and others that do not directly meet the necessary conditions to welcome new tenants. “The legislation gives city councils weapons to act in case of ruin, but we are so small and with so few resources that we cannot execute the laws,” he lamented in 2024 Enrique Collada, mayor of Alcarria, a town of 71 inhabitants in Guadalajara. Similar message launches the Tierras Sorianas del Cid Association: “There is a lot of empty housing or housing with residual use that we should try to put on the market.” The objective: escape the effects of demographic winter. Another thing (as has happened in Beratón) is the rigors of the climatic winter. Images | Beratón Town Hall and Miguel Á. Garcia (Flickr) In Xataka … Read more

the replica of his house

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It happened in October 2012. The Internet had discovered what seemed like a program whose existence was unknown to ordinary mortals: the complex used by Navy SEAL Team 6 to train in the raid against Osama bin Laden in Pakistan was still visible in Bing satellite view. The surprise was huge: an identical model of Laden’s refuge in Abbottabad had been built in the United States. From then until now, Washington has perfected the tactic. From the laboratory to the real assault. The capture of Nicolás Maduro It was not an adventurous improvisation nor a bet on chaos, but rather the almost literal execution of a plan. rehearsed for months in a controlled environment. Before helicopters, fighters and drones crossed Venezuelan airspace, the United States had already traveled that path dozens of times in Kentucky, within a life size replica from the shelter where the Venezuelan leader spent his nights. Walls, reinforced doors, interior routes and reaction times were studied to the extreme, in the same way that had been done fourteen years before with the Abbottabad complex. The logic is simple and brutal: reduce reality to a technical problem, turn a real assault into a repetition of training, and almost completely eliminate the friction of the unexpected. Abbottabad as a manual. The operation against Osama bin Laden in 2011 marked a before and after in the US doctrine of high value operations. So the CIA and JSOC built replicas of the Pakistani compound, analyzed the target’s life patterns for months, and rehearsed every move to the hilt. In fact, published the programs of the models used. The use of human intelligence, persistent surveillance, and physical target simulation allowed the SEALs to enter a sovereign country, execute the mission, and leave within minutes. Venezuela shows that that was no exception history, but the birth of a method. Everything that worked with Bin Laden (replications, life patterns, repeated trials, night execution and rapid withdrawal) has been reapplied almost point by point in Caracas. Replica of Bin Laden’s house developed by the CIA Replica of Bin Laden’s house developed by the CIA The eye that does not blink. One element connects Abbottabad and Caracas especially clearly: the use of RQ-170 Sentinel. We are talking about a stealth drone, designed to monitor high-value targets in hostile environments, which was key both in Pakistan as in Venezuela. Its mission is not to attack, but to observe without being seen, establish routines, confirm presences and offer information in real time during the assault. In the case of Maduro, the TWZ analysts that the Sentinel would have orbited for weeks to fine-tune every detail of your daily life and, already in operation, to feed the command centers with live images and data. It is the modern equivalent of the all-seeing surveillance, but with sensors capable of turning an entire city into a dashboard readable from thousands of kilometers away. The qualitative leap of the objective. The big difference between Abbottabad and Caracas is not in the technique, but rather in the target range. Bin Laden was the leader of a terrorist organization hiding in a private compound. Maduro was the head of a sovereign state, protected by regular armed forces and housed in military facilities. Replicating the same methodology for him implies an escalation enormous political and strategic. If in 2011 the United States demonstrated that could enter Pakistan to eliminate an enemy, in Venezuela he has shown that he can kidnap an active president, take him out of the country and do it without own casualties. The implicit message is much more disturbing: there is no rank, position or border that makes someone untouchable if Washington decides otherwise. The final lesson. If you also want, the comparison between Bin Laden and Maduro leaves a conclusion that is difficult to ignore. United States has perfected a doctrine which combines human intelligence, stealth aerial surveillance, physical simulation of the target and special forces to turn the capture of a specific person into an almost industrial problem. First it is rehearsed, then it is executed. First you observe it for months, then you act in minutes. From that prism, the Venezuela operation It does not inaugurate anything new, but it does confirm something essential: everything learned in Abbottabad is not only still valid, but has been expanded and normalized. The strategic lesson in this sense is clear and deeply uncomfortable for the rest of the planet: if Washington sets its mind to it, today it has the ability to capture practically any individual on the planet, in almost any place, and at the time it deems appropriate. Image | INC In Xataka | For 150 aircraft to bomb Venezuela, the US used one of the most lethal tactics of the war: gunboat diplomacy In Xataka | Someone bet $30,000 that Maduro would fall the night before he fell. He has won $400,000

While Big Brother sinks, ‘The House of Twins 2’ triumphs with a wild, online and unfiltered reality show

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This past December 7, a digital reality show achieved what seemed impossible: surpassing the format that for decades had been the undisputed king of Spanish reality shows, ‘Big Brother’. ‘La Casa de los Gemelos 2’, produced by brothers Carlos and Daniel Ramos for YouTube and Kick, attracted more than 200,000 simultaneous viewers during its inaugural gala. The figure is especially significant when compared to the parallel collapse of ‘Big Brother 20’, which Mediaset has been forced to cancel early after registering historic audience lows. But what is broken is not the format, but how it is presented. The first edition. How we count on your daythe first edition of ‘The House of Twins’, released on October 12, 2025, raised questions about the limits of unfiltered entertainment. That experiment, an imitation of ‘Big Brother’ that worked with the fauna cultivated in the Twins’ debates, completely lacked structure: there was no presenter or rules, and the Ramos trusted that the mere coexistence of explosive TikTok personalities would generate content for a full week. The result was both an operational disaster and a viral phenomenon. The program reached peaks of 48,000 viewers connected simultaneously and exceeded one million accumulated views in just nine hours of broadcast. The house became the scene of physical fights between contestants such as La Marrash and La Falete, there was visible consumption of alcohol and substances, destruction of furniture and moments of tension that they bordered on criminal. The program was emergency canceled in the early hours of October 13. A subsequent debate attracted 150,000 spectators and became trending topics number one in Spain. Reality television without filters. The next step was to professionalize the format, but without losing that fundamental idea along the way. And the Ramos bet heavily on this new iteration. As revealed by Kiko Hernández himself in the program ‘We are nobody’, the production has a budget of more than 600,000 euros, a figure well above what is usual in Spanish digital entertainment. The prize for the winner is doubled compared to the first edition: 100,000 euros for those who resist until December 31. Familiar faces. The creators have gone directly to the Mediaset ecosystem and derivatives: José Labrador, from ‘Gandía Shore’; Eros Vidal and Gabriella Barbu, from ‘Temptation Island’; Nissy Lahr, from ‘Secret Story’, make up a core of personalities that the Spanish public already knows. Them they add up Kiko Hernández as master of ceremonies, Víctor Sandoval as “dictator” of the house, and Coto Matamoros as “executioner” in charge of punishments. To bait the audience. From the first moment at the premiere, audiences skyrocketed and the program became trending on social networks. Among the most significant moments, an accidental nude of La Marrash during a moment of lack of control or the reunion between Kiko Hernández and Coto Matamoros, two figures who had not met on screen since ‘Crónicas Marcianas’, and between whom great tension was palpable. Kiko took the opportunity to attack Mediaset and to the fame that ‘Big Brother’ drags: “There has never been a rape here, right?”, he said in reference to the case of Carlota Prado in ‘Big Brother Revolution’. The ‘Big Brother’ disaster. While ‘The House of Twins 2’ celebrated its digital success, ‘Big Brother 20’ was the star of the most resounding failure in the history of the format. The premiere in September 2024 it barely achieved a 17.4% sharesetting the program’s worst inaugural mark. But the decline accelerated week after week until hitting rock bottom in November with a devastating 11.3% share and only 636,000 viewers. The panic in Mediaset was unleashed with the abrupt cancellation of the daily strip and erratic programming decisions. The domino effect reached the entire chain: Telecinco closed November with a 9% monthly quota, its worst historical record for that month, chaining five consecutive months under the 10% threshold. On December 5, Mediaset decided close the program before Christmasproducing a triple expulsion to accelerate the pace of the programs. Two months in broadcast, record down. The problem is not the format. Some analysts talk about a flat casting and without charisma, too sweetened content, and viewers have complained that practices that gave excitement to the galas, such as on-set interviews, have been abandoned. ‘The House of Twins 2’ recovered precisely the elements that made the original ‘Big Brother’ great: 24-hour retransmission without manipulative editing, authentic profiles even if they are uncomfortable, and freedom for conflicts to develop organically. While Telecinco must comply with strict regulations on child protection schedules, advertising limits and content control, the Ramos brothers operate on YouTube and Kick with almost total freedom which allows them to experiment without corsets. The program allows itself the morbidity and transgression that the public demands, but without the restrictions that paralyze conventional television. In Xataka | ‘Temptation Island’ is one of the few things that works on Telecinco. So much so that they are already recording a new season

We Spaniards are stopping having Christmas trees because they don’t fit in our house. So there are already companies renting them

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The year or the city doesn’t matter. At least in Spain, Christmas usually comes accompanied by a series of images that are repeated December after December, invariably: streets full of colored ledsbalconies in which they begin to appear papanoels and other Christmas decorations, shop windows in which gold, silver and reddish colors suddenly predominate… and living rooms in which trees full of tinsel and garlands sprout overnight. Year after year the same questions are also repeated: better natural or artificial tree? And above all… What the hell do we do with it after Epiphany, when it’s time to pick up the decorations? Where do we store it, if we already have the storage room all the way up? There are those who have seen In those doubts a promising business. Tree Earrings. There is no Christmas without decorations. And there is no Christmas decoration worth its salt without a good tree. It’s been like this all our lives, but just in case there were any doubts, cities like Vigo, Barcelona, Badalona either Madriddetermined to build gigantic trees in the heart of the urban area. Something similar happens in businesses, offices and homes. People demand trees (both artificial and natural), something that is felt in the nurseries and the big chains of decoration. As a reference, the National Christmas Tree Association (NCTA) estimates that each year they are sold in the US between 25 and 30 million of natural Christmas trees, which requires a huge plantation with hundreds of millions of copies distributed throughout the country. The dilemma, whether you choose real or fake fir trees, is… What to do with them later? A question, a business. There are those who have seen that question and the demand for Christmas trees as a business. After all… Why rack your brains choosing decorations, assembling them, disassembling them and then looking for a place to store them for months if we can pay a company to take care of everything? Or better yet, what if instead of buying the tree we rented it? Leasing trees may sound strange, but there comes a quick search on Google to find a few companies that operate in Spain and they dedicate precisely to that: to temporarily give up trees full of lights in exchange for a fee. The offer is wide and includes everything from small specimens to others of large size and size, for both indoor and outdoor spaces. But is it a business? Yes. The holidays may only last a few weeks, but if companies like Ximenezthe Córdoba company that has been in charge of setting up decorations in Vigo, Madrid, Barcelona or Milan, is that Christmas decorations can become a million dollar business. After all, it is not only families who demand decoration. Governments and companies of all kinds also do it, from businesses that do not have space to store decorations the rest of the year to hotels that need trees for their living rooms and hallways. In a warehouse in Madrid… One of the most popular Christmas tree rental companies in Spain is B&M, a family business with twenty years of experience that works from a warehouse in Tetuán, Madrid. Recently those responsible they explained to The Spanish Newspaper Every campaign, about 200 trees come out of there ready to decorate and that the company itself is in charge of collecting once the holidays are over. Their work involves several challenges, such as matching the taste of their clients and coordinating the logistics that require dismantling and removing 200 trees during the second week of January. “The pickup is intense because on the 9th everyone wants you to pick it up.” “Three, four hours at least”. The company also makes it clear that although it may seem like a simple task, preparing the ideal tree requires work. First they convey a proposal to the clients. Then they shape it. “A four or five meter tree is a job for five or six people, who have to spend at least three or four hours on it,” clarifies the signaturewhich explains, for example, that there are businesses that want trees with their corporate colors. How much do these services cost? In your website There are rates (with delivery and collection service included) ranging from 265 to 2,800 euros, without VAT. It all depends on the tree you want. They range from 1.5 to five meters. Are there more options? Yes. The demand for Christmas decoration is intense enough that it has encouraged other businesses, such as those that are committed to sustainability and offer a rent in pot. Your proposal? Instead of buying a plastic tree or taking a felled fir, rent one that you can place in your house alive, with its pot. Once in your living room you can decorate and take care of it and after Christmas the company will collect it to take it to a forest or to its nursery of origin. Images | Arun Kuchibhotla (Unsplash) and Jared Lind (Unsplash) In Xataka | Without knowing it, we all honor Thor during Christmas thanks to a pagan ritual: the Christmas tree

A British MP did not have permission to build a house in the countryside so he was left with only one option: dig it up

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Housing is one of the main problemsnot only because of the scarcity that makes its price skyrocketsbut because, even if you already have a plot on which to build the house of your dreams, urban planning and environmental legislation will not always allow you to build it. That is precisely what happened to British MP Bob Marshall-Andrews in the late 90s, when he wanted to build a house with sea views in Wales, but faced a huge dilemma. Environmental regulations did not allow him to erect any buildings since it was a natural space. There was only one way out so that your home was legal: dig it out. A house in a hole with sea views As and how did he count Wales Onlinelawyer and Labor Party MP Bob Marshall-Andrews and his wife Gill wanted to escape the bustle of the city and enjoy the leisurely pace of the waves crashing into St. Bride’s Bay on the Pembrokeshire cliffs in the far west of Wales. For years, he and his family had been spending vacations in an old military barracks. on Druidston Cliffuntil the structure began to deteriorate and the need to build something new became apparent. That’s where his problems began. The land of the MP and his wife Gill is located about 150 meters from the sea, in the heart of the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park, a protected area since 1949 that covers more than 300 kilometers of coastline with cliffs, open beaches, sheltered bays, marshes and dunes. In this environment, the authorities have been traditionally very strict: the neighbors considered practically impossible to obtain permission even for small glazed extensions in existing houses. To comply with the regulations and still stay in that place, the only way was to literally hide the new house underground, excavating the land and taking advantage of the natural ridge of the cliff as part of the construction. The idea came from his son Tom, who thought it would be a good idea to integrate the house into the landscape by excavating it between two hills. The result was Malatora semi-buried house, almost invisible from afar, which today has become one of the most striking examples of architecture integrated into the landscape of the Welsh coast. So much so that it even has your own reference on Wikipedia. A crazy idea that ended in genius The British parliamentarian left the commission to the architects Jan Kaplicky and Amanda Levetefounders of the Future Systems studio, had a central premise: to obtain legalized housing that would not give arguments to those responsible for the park. to deny license. To avoid any feeling of privilege towards a parliamentarian, the project was planned from the beginning as a construction that would not compete with the landscape, but would hide in it and reduce its visible impact to a minimum, just as Tom, the son of the owners, had proposed. Thus, the architects chose build downexcavating the hill instead of raising a traditional construction, so that the house will be buried under a cover of earth and grass that continues the shape of the hill. This strategy is reminiscent of ancient techniques from northern Scandinavia, where layers of earth and grass were accumulated to form thick walls with good thermal inertia and great camouflage capacity in the terrain. The designers were inspired by the wing section of an airplane for its visible part. The façade facing the sea is resolved with a large glass plane and portholes, while the upper part and sides are buried and covered with grass and vegetation, so that from the park path the house is perceived as a simple mound covered with grass. This extreme integration with the landscape It was decisive for the local authorities to give their approval, since the construction does not break the undulating line of meadows and bushes nor does it introduce visible plot limits, fences or gardens separated from the rest of the park. Furthermore, technically, no construction had been “raised”. Inside, the curved floor plan is organized around a central fireplace, inspired by the great medieval halls. A large semicircular sofa and prefabricated walls that separate the rooms of the house without touching the ceiling, reinforcing the feeling of continuous space. Respect for the environment was taken to the extreme even during its construction, as many of the internal elements, including the bathrooms, were manufactured in workshops and brought in small pieces to the plot. A decision designed to reduce heavy truck traffic to a minimum on a narrow road adapted to the orography of the cliff. The house soon became popular in the area and, given its peculiar design, the locals have baptized it as “the Teletubbies house” due to its resemblance to the half-buried house from the children’s series, a nickname that its owner receives with humor. In Xataka | Of all the places there were to build a $400,000 house, this millionaire chose the most unusual: in a tree Image | Geograph.org (Cered, Deborah Tilley, Simon Mortimer, Michael Graham, Dave Challender)

For years, foreigners who wanted sun and beach bought a house in Spain. Now they are looking for something else: luxury housing

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The real estate market emits signals which show that foreigners have won a relevant weight in the sale and purchase of luxury homes, which leads us to think about changes in the profile of the international buyer. Spain is no longer just a destination for families or couples from other countries interested in getting a small apartment for their vacation in search of sun and beach. It also receives wealthy people who want settle herein the cities, and is able to pay for his house out of pocket. The data are certainly suggestive. “First level destination”. I warned him recently in an interview with Idealista Paloma Pérez Bravo, CEO of Residencial de Lucas Fox, a platform specialized in the premium market: “Spain has gone from being a sun and beach getaway to a top-level luxury destination.” From your experiencethe country “has stopped being the home of the sun and has become the home of investment. People want more first homes than second homes because they are moving to Spain.” It’s not the only change he appreciates. Upon your signature, Bravo explains to SERdigital nomads are now arriving, entrepreneurs from America, English and American, also businessmen and investors who used to invest in the US and now find themselves with problems there due to Trump’s immigration policy. Is there data? Yes, although they come mainly from companies, so they must be handled with some caution. In your report On market forecasts for 2026, Lucas Fox reveals for example that 62% of buyers Those who close transactions worth more than 2.5 million euros are foreigners, more than 60% of ultra-luxury sales are signed without the need for financing and a good part of the acquisitions are made in search of a “main residence”, not to convert the property into a vacation home or as an investment. Looking ahead to next year, the company also expects that activity in the segments prime and super prime grow 3-6% and 6-10% respectively and leaves behind a fundamental idea that tells us about the profile of those clients who purchase the most expensive houses: “The international buyer is already the majority.” Specifically, the weight of Europeans stands out, followed by Americans and British. Other percentage: 92%. Lucas Fox is not the first to warn of the frequency with which foreign accents are heard in real estate agencies specializing in the premium market. A few months ago Barnes claimed that 92% of buyers from the Spanish luxury market were already foreigners. Of them, around half (49%) were also investors from outside the EU, with a notable presence especially of Mexicans, Colombians, Venezuelans, Russians, Chinese and Arabs. The community members They accounted for 43% while the Spanish, according to the real estate agency, were left with a meager 8% of the total. Are there more clues? The answer is once again affirmative. Another company that shared data recently is LuxuryEstatea premium housing portal that confirms that searches by international buyers interested in the Spanish market already represent a substantial part of its traffic. Above all, the demand for information from european countries such as Germany, France, Italy, Belgium or the Netherlands and the interest aroused by the premium segment of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands, Madrid or the Valencian Community. Other regions, such as the Canary Islands and the Basque Country, also seem to be emerging. A consolidated destination. LuxuryEstate confirm in fact that ours “is no longer just an aspirational destination, but a highly competitive market.” The comment is in line with what it points out to Lucas Fox or even CaixaBank Research, which in a recent analysis Regarding the changes in the profile of the resident foreigner who acquires housing in Spain, he warns: “Spain has established itself as one of the most attractive destinations for luxury investment in Europe.” Different buyers. In the same reportCaixaBank recalls that the demand for housing by foreigners has grown in recent years, first after the pandemic and then thanks to the improvement in financing. It also clarifies that there are differences between resident foreigners and those who do not live here and are mainly looking for houses for their vacations or as an investment. On average, the former (residents) paid around €1,795/m2 in 2024 and the latter (non-residents) €3,063/m2. These are values ​​significantly higher than those recorded by national buyers, which moved at 1,713. However, the last balance of Property Registrars shows that foreign demand for housing has reduced in the third quarter of the year, representing 13.6% of the total. The percentage reflects the entire market, not just the luxury segment, although there are those who warn that the latter is not immune to the shortage of supply, which among other issues affects its prices. Images | DaYsO (Unsplash) In Xataka | After Catalonia, there is another autonomous community considering prohibiting buying a home to invest: Canary Islands

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