Shark board

PalmWhen he arrived in 2007, the group of friends was divided between those from eight Mallorcan lineages, with a home secured by inheritance, and those of us who were children of outsiders, who only we could inherit our parents' mortgageIn my group of friends, it was an axiom.

While the lucky ones arrived with the keys in hand without ever having set foot in a bank, the rest of us rushed into the market, adrenaline pumping and scared, because every month apartment prices went up by 6,000 euros. At the banks, every day was the boss's day. It didn't matter if the debt exceeded 70%. There was always a way to fix it.

I was rejected for a mortgage by one bank and went straight to the next, as if they were the ones who had to fight for me. I negotiated like a bull. My future was at stake. Literally. And I closed a deal with terms that even the notary questioned. I feel grateful to the bank, which, naturally, ended up being absorbed by another, the biggest crook, but also the survivor.

Years later, a loan officer told me he wasn't interested in me as a client because my terms were making him lose money. Life insurance wasn't even mandatory. I wasn't fazed by the comment. I just smiled.

Of course, I criticize what happened back then, but given the evolution of the real estate system, the government's subservience, and the absolute power of speculators, I should consider myself lucky because, with great effort, I survived the runaway Euribor of that era. Paradoxically, I paid for the banks' party, the same one that, in hindsight, allowed me to become a homeowner.

Back in 2007, without that chaos, I had the same chances of buying a home as I do now. In reality, the situation is much worse today because the middle class—if there is one left—can't even consider taking out a mortgage. Control has passed into the hands of the most savage and liquid capitalism, to the investment funds with which the banks, thanks to everyone's money, swept the problem under the rug. Now they receive you in their white, tacky-futuristic offices, oblivious to the fact that they've turned those evicted into mere file numbers, transferred to elusive speculators. Buying an apartment was already difficult in 2007, but at least we were still part of the game. Now, the playing field belongs to sharks in suits.