The new generation no longer wants a house: it wants flexible property.

If you are under 35 years old and live in a big city, you probably know this loop: you rent because buying is impossible, but renting doesn’t allow you to breathe either. The result is a strange feeling of paying for something that builds nothing. It’s not just a perception. In Spain, rental prices have increased by 11.5% in 2024 and are still at historical highs, with cities like Barcelona and Madrid already moving into price ranges that consume a good part of the average salary. (El pais)

At the same time, buying has become more distant. Among those under 29 years old, only about 26% live in owned housing, compared to 54% in 2008. And for many young people, accessing a mortgage would mean allocating more than 60% of their monthly income to the payment. (Fundación la Caixa)

With these rules, it’s no surprise that youth emancipation in Spain is at a minimum: only 15.2% of young people were independent in the second half of 2024. (Idealista)

It’s not that this generation doesn’t want a home; it’s that the market has shut both traditional doors.

This is not just about prices. It’s about a deeper change in how a generation understands stability, investment, and the very idea of home.

Two doors that have become narrow: renting and buying

For decades, the housing market was sustained by two clear options:

1. Renting for living with flexibility without tying yourself to debt.

2. Buying as a natural step towards stability and assets.

Today, that dichotomy is broken.

• Renting is no longer transitional. In many areas, six out of ten rental homes exceed 1,000 euros a month. (Sur) With wages not keeping up, renting stops being a bridge and becomes an indefinite destination.
  
  
  

• Buying requires conditions that a significant part of the new generation cannot meet. Not only because of the entry price but the lifestyle discipline it implies: job stability, savings, permanence in a city, and tolerance for debt.
  
  

This gridlock is not exclusive to Spain. In the EU, the average age to leave home remains above 26 years. (European Commission)

In this context, a third way appears that is not a trend but a logical adaptation.

The new generation wants stability, but not in the old way

Here lies the paradox:
The same generation that delays home buying is also the most aware of the need to build assets. They simply don’t want to do it with traditional models.

What we see in insights and recurring interviews is a clear demand:

• They want to invest without being mortgaged for life.

• They want stability without giving up mobility.

• They want ownership without assuming it alone.

• They want housing as a service, not as a burden.

It’s not a lack of interest in housing. It’s a lack of fit between real life and market options. Their reality is marked by less linear jobs, more expensive cities, changing priorities, and a different relationship with risk. Total ownership is no longer perceived as the only symbol of success; often, it feels like a loss of freedom.

This opens the way to a powerful idea: flexible ownership.

What is flexible ownership (and why it’s not just a pretty invention)

Flexible ownership means, in essence, decoupling housing from the rigid model of 100% ownership. It’s not giving up ownership. It’s redesigning it to better fit more dynamic lives and tighter economies.

In Europe, we already see various formats growing:

• Co-ownership or shared ownership: several people buy an asset with clear usage or profitability rights. The entry barrier lowers and the risk is shared. (Forbes)
  
  

• Hybrid models between living and investing: the user not only resides, but also builds equity with each monthly payment, avoiding the sensation of throwing money away.
  
  

• Coliving, cohousing, and modern cooperatives: not as disguised rental, but as a structure for progressive access, community, and shared services.
  
  

• Intermediate financing: products that sit between mortgage and personal loans to facilitate partial or staggered purchases. (Deloitte)

The interesting thing is that these models tackle the same three underlying pains:

1. Impossible entry (down payment).

2. Excessive debt for unstable lives.

3. Financial isolation: buying solo is too much.

It’s not a coincidence. It’s the market trying to regain options when the old system can no longer hold.

Why this is a real opportunity for corporates

Flexible ownership is not just a consumer trend. It’s a territory for new business for anyone involved in the housing ecosystem:

• Banks and insurers: can design new financial products, with lower individual risk and better alignment with young people’s real flows.

• Developers and asset managers: can diversify demand without relying solely on the traditional buyer. Today, Spain has one of the lowest levels of housing initiated per capita in Europe, further pressuring access. (BBVA Research)

• Companies with young talent: housing has become part of the attraction and retention package. Flexible access models can be a strategic benefit, not just a one-time aid.

• Retail and cities: as housing approaches the service format, new hubs of urban life, consumption, community, and mobility appear.

These types of changes cannot be resolved with incremental improvements. It requires exploration with labs, prototyping, and model validation. And this is where venture building is particularly useful: not only to detect opportunities but to design them from scratch with the market.

What we learn when we explore these models

When we have worked on similar challenges from insights to labs, there are three frictions that always arise and that any new model must resolve:

• Trust and governance: if you share ownership, you need transparent, simple, and fair rules. Without that, there is no adoption.
  
  

• Operational management: people want flexibility but do not want to manage conflicts, maintenance, or rentals. The model needs to be “managed”.
  
  

• Exiting is as important as entering: flexible ownership must allow real mobility. If you cannot easily sell your part or change its use, the system becomes rigid again.

These are not minor details: they are the conditions that turn a good idea into a scalable venture.

Conclusion

The new generation has not stopped wanting housing. They have stopped wanting it as it was offered before. In a context where renting builds nothing and buying requires too much, flexible ownership appears as the logical evolution: a way to mix stability with mobility, investment with use, and access with community.

For corporates, this transformation is not a threat but an opportunity to design new business in one of the sectors with the most structural tension in Europe. And as always, the starting point is not the bricks, but understanding the real motivations of the user.