How much it costs to keep an empty house? The figure may be quite a surprise.
Having an empty house causes numerous expenses that increase exponentially if we have mortgaged the house. In the current situation, to have stopped (or rented or sold) a house of 90 m2 in Madrid with a mortgage can cost over 30,000 euros per year. Surprising? Let’s do the numbers:
Fixed expenses
Without going into any maintenance or repairs, owning a home has many fixed costs. Thus, for example the house of 90 m2 in Madrid can be concluded that to have: Property Tax or IBI (400 per year), community-owned (100 per month or 1,200 per year), home insurance (300 euros per year), minimum expenditure of light (20 240 euros per month or per year), minimum expenditure of gas (20 euros or 120 euros every two months a year).
In total, the approximate cost of this fixed cost would be about 2000-2400 per year.
Deterioration in the price
Almost any house that is currently in the market suffers a loss in value as the price declines are somewhat generalized. A house of 90 m2 in Madrid (half m2 Price: 3,642 euros) has an average price of 327,780 euros, according to the latest data report idealista.com prices
As the price of housing in Madrid fell 6.5% in the last 12 months, the house has “lost” value of EUR 22,786 in the last year
In total, adding the fixed costs and the deterioration of the price, any house without the use of these features would have cost the owner approximately 25,000 euros
Mortgage interest
In the unlikely event that the home was recently foreclosed, we would have an additional expense. At this point we will only enter as “cost” of housing interests, considering the principal and savings. Although last year there was minimal interest rates, also the owner have had to endure through interest cost. Specifically, for an open mortgage last year to 80% for a house of € 350,000 with an interest rate of 2%, interest paid in the last 12 months have been about 5,500 euros.
In total, be empty or sell a home of 90 m2 in Madrid may have come to cost the owner more than 30,000 euros in the last 12 months or 8.5% of the price a year ago.
It should be noted here that if the total interest rate mortgage for less than 5%, the interest cost would increase from € 5,500 to about 14,000 euros. with this data and keeping other variables fixed, the cost of having the empty house would be around 40,000 euros, more than 14% of the price.
