Home owner Gemma López outside a building in Madrid’s Vallecas district where she owns an occupied apartment.
Photographer: Ana Maria Arevalo Gosen/BloombergSpain’s Housing Chaos Pits Squatters Against Stranded Owners
Tens of thousands of occupied homes are for sale as Spain’s housing market reaches a boiling point.
In a working-class neighborhood in Madrid, Sonia Morán was cooking lunch for her daughter when the intercom rang incessantly. With the sound rattling her nerves, she buzzed the person in the building without checking. Moments later a man in plain black clothes was at her door and demanded she open up.