Bank of Spain Puts Housing Shortfall at 750,000 Homes, Half in Six Provinces

On 18 June 2026 the Bank of Spain published an estimate of the country's housing gap: roughly 750,000 homes accumulated between 2021 and 2025, the difference between new households formed and homes actually built.

More than half of that shortfall, 52.5%, sits in just six provinces: Madrid, Barcelona, Alicante, Valencia, Murcia and Malaga. Those provinces house 36% of Spanish families and feel the supply squeeze hardest, which lines up directly with the price data above.

The central bank points to a straightforward cause: housing supply has responded too slowly to demand growth for years. For comparison, it puts Portugal's gap at 300,000 homes and Italy's at 400,000, both smaller than Spain's despite comparable or larger populations.

For buyers, the shortage isn't a temporary dip but a structural problem that built up over five years and won't clear quickly. That's especially true in those six provinces: if a property there fits the criteria, competition for it is likely to keep growing.