Shark board

PalmWhen I arrived in 2007, the group of friends was divided between those from eight Mallorcan families, with homes secured by inheritance, and those of us who were children of outsiders, who could only inherit our parents' mortgages. In my group, 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 threw ourselves into the market, adrenaline pumping and scared, because every month apartments 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. He feels gratitude for the institution that, logically, ended up being absorbed by another, the most corrupt, but also the survivor.

Years later, a manager told me he wasn't interested in me as a client because my terms were causing him to lose money. I didn't even have mandatory life insurance. I wasn't fazed by the comment. I just smiled.

Of course, I criticize what happened in those years, but given the evolution of the real estate system, the subservience of the government, and the absolute power of the speculators, I should feel fortunate because, with great effort, I survived the runaway Euribor of that period. Paradoxically, I paid for the banks' party, the same one that, in retrospect, 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. Actually, 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, and they ignore the fact that they turned those evicted into a file number transferred to speculators who are difficult to trace. In 2007 it was already difficult to buy an apartment, but at least we were still part of the game. Now, the board belongs to sharks in suits.