Young people in Spain need to ‘save more, work harder and get better jobs’ if they want to buy a home, according to the boss of one of Europe’s biggest real estate firms.

Mikel Echavarren, president of Colliers in Spain and Portugal, made the controversial remarks during a lengthy interview on Spain’s housing crisis – where he argued the country’s soaring property prices are not caused by a bubble, but by a long-term structural problem.

Speaking on the Idealista podcast ‘En Primera Persona’, Echavarren said Spain’s housing market faces a ‘gigantic’ imbalance between supply and demand that could take decades to fix.

But it was his comments on young people trying to get onto the property ladder that are likely to provoke the strongest reaction.

‘Young people need to be told uncomfortable things,’ he said.

‘They need to choose a professional path that allows them to live, they need to save, work very hard and, in most cases, buy a home as a couple. It’s very tough.

‘When I bought my house, I took out a q0-year mortgage at 15% interest and dedicated all my money to paying it off.

‘I didn’t go to the cinema or restaurants for years, and I didn’t feel like a victim. It wasn’t even a good deal, but it was what I had to do.’

The veteran property executive, who has spent almost 40 years in the industry, compared today’s housing emergency to a wildfire that cannot be extinguished quickly because Spain is simply not building enough homes.

According to Echavarren, Spain is constructing around 100,000 homes per year while the real creation of households is closer to 250,000 annually.

At the same time, he claimed Spain’s rapidly growing population – boosted by immigration – is adding even more pressure to an already overheated market.

Adding to this problem are policies like mass regularisation, which he believes will lead to an increase in demand.

‘You cannot have open borders bringing in 500,000 people a year if you are incapable of building 250,000 homes,’ he argued.

Echavarren insisted the problem is not a speculative housing bubble like the one seen before the 2008 crash.

Instead, he blamed decades of underbuilding, restrictive planning rules, rising construction costs and tougher banking regulations introduced after the financial crisis.

He argued that modern mortgage lending standards now exclude many young buyers because banks focus more heavily on income stability and repayment ability rather than the future value of the property itself.

That, he said, forces huge numbers of young Spaniards into the rental market, driving rents even higher.

The Colliers chief also attacked Spain’s housing laws, claiming legal uncertainty and anti-landlord policies are scaring investors and homeowners away from renting out properties.

He warned that rent caps and strong tenant protections are causing landlords to withdraw homes from the market entirely.

According to Echavarren, around 40,000 rental properties currently owned by investment funds could soon be sold off rather than continue operating as rentals.

The businessman also criticised what he called the ‘demonisation’ of private investors and developers.

‘The private sector is not guilty,’ he said.

‘The private sector builds homes and rents them at the highest possible price. When there is more supply than demand, prices fall. When there is more demand than supply, prices rise.’

Among his proposed solutions were allowing taller apartment buildings, dividing large homes into multiple smaller units, reducing taxes on landlords and speeding up planning permissions.

He also suggested that some technical and environmental requirements for affordable housing should be temporarily relaxed to reduce building costs.

Echavarren admitted many of his proposals would be politically unpopular, but argued Spain is already in a full-scale ‘housing emergency’.

His comments come as housing affordability continues to dominate political debate across Spain, particularly in major cities and tourist hotspots such as Madrid, Barcelona and areas of the Costa del Sol, where rising rents and property prices have pushed many younger residents out of the market altogether.