The income of multi-landlords is almost four times higher than that of tenants, and their wealth is multiplied by 450, according to a report from the Ministry of Social Rights, Consumer Affairs and the 2030 Agenda, prepared together with the Spanish National Research Council (IFS-CSIC).
The study, released this Tuesday and based on the Financial Survey of Families from the Bank of Spain, concludes that economic gaps between the population depend above all on the role households play in the housing market—being a tenant, owner, or landlord—above other classic factors such as age or income level.
Coordinated by Javier Gil, the report finds that households that rent are those with the lowest incomes, while those who earn income from renting are among the segments with the highest income levels.
Thus, the median annual income for tenant households stands at 21,335 euros, compared to 50,959 euros for landlords with a single rented property. Among multi-landlords, meaning those who own two or more properties for rent, the median income reaches 80,375 euros annually, nearly four times that of tenants. For owners of the home in which they reside, the median annual income is 32,120 euros.
Gap in Net Worth Between Tenants and Landlords
Regarding wealth, tenant households have a median net worth of 2,217 euros, far from the 193,919 euros of those who own their primary residence.
For households that rent a property from third parties, the median net worth amounts to 407,975 euros, meaning 184 times more than that of tenants. In the case of multi-landlords, this figure rises to 996,826 euros, which represents 450 times the net worth of households that live by renting.
The document prepared by Consumer Affairs and the CSIC emphasizes that this housing-related gap has intensified significantly in recent decades.
In 2002, 90% of households held 65.4% of residential wealth, but in 2022 their share decreased to 58.1%. In parallel, the top 10% with the most resources has gone from accumulating 34.5% to 41.9% of the total. Furthermore, in 2011, 69.3% of those under 35 years old owned their homes, while in 2022 that proportion fell to 31.8%, more than 37 percentage points less in eleven years.