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Norwegian influencer buys failed property development in Spain to build ‘self-sufficient’ eco-community – Modern Eco Village plans to erect 500 homes, schools and shops
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- Authors
- Beatriz Olaizola
- Published
- Mar 2 2026
- Word count
- 1840 words
Ah yes, the lesser known pneumatic variant of the Zigbee spec 🙄
It’s a shame, I’m all for intentional community building, and starting with clear goals and an architectural plan to support that is an important part of doing so. But that six word quote tells me all I need to know about the people running it and their grasp on those tricky concepts like “objective facts” and “evidence”. Fair play to the journalist for choosing that specific snippet to put it in the article though!
Now I want to know what a pneumatic smart home protocol look like lol
Well, there is the widely used KNX smart home standard that is entirely cable based, with shielded variants of those cables easily obtainable, though not cheap. KNX isn't usually used for smaller residential buildings, but there is nothing preventing you from doing so, it's just a bit overkill.
Very fair, and honestly I'd take wired smart home hardware as a significant reliability and security selling point if I were buying it. If it does turn out they're using that with properly shielded cables and that nobody can use their phones inside any of the houses because they've got Faraday cage mesh in the walls and no WiFi, I'll upgrade my assessment of these guys from "run of the mill fools and/or grifters" to "surprisingly well informed but damagingly misguided"!
But I'd also make a significant bet that anyone described as an influencer isn't actually blocking WiFi and phone signals in their newly built community...
Self sufficient, in Spain? The place that’s looking more like the Sahara everyday and has massive droughts + fore problems? I’m sure the land was cheap but that an interesting choice.
This is presumably aimed at rich foreigners:
AFAIK the fiscal climate in Spain is rather detrimental to rich people, which makes this choice an even more interesting one.
At least it’ll be EMF free they say…
Considering it's a Norwegian influencer, I assume that the intention is to target Norwegians. There's a culture here of staying in Norway in the summer and going to Spain for a long holiday in the winter. Richer Norwegians have holiday homes in Spain for the winter.
Those are... very reasonable, middle-class prices?. Average house cost in Spain is ~€3.5k/m2, so an average Spanish 50 m2 one-bedroom would cost €175k and so on. To Northern European standards, that's quite cheap.
Going by the 1:5 income:house price ratio rule-of-thumb, a single person to earn €33k for the one-bedroom, and a couple with/looking to start a family would need to make €96k together for the four-bedroom — all very easily achievable, even for Spaniards.
Oh my gosh, I’ve never come across a benchmark like that, but it definitely puts into perspective how abysmal house prices are in Melbourne Australia.
I've always felt that a 1:5 ratio was stretching people far too thin. Maybe with the current prices, that's the only way that people can buy homes, but there is no way I'd bite. I've always tried to be closer to 1:3 or 1:3.5.
Are you thinking house prices or monthly payment? I've heard 30% of monthly income used as a rule of thumb for housing expenses, although as you rightly say it's kinda the only option for a lot of people to go past that with current prices, but it should be plausible to hit that number on the monthly costs with reasonable mortgage assumptions if the house value is 5x salary. Then again, maybe I've just spent so many years in such an insane housing market that I'm seeing 30% as a lofty goal rather than the worst case limit it perhaps should be!
No, I wasn't thinking of the 30% "rule" for monthly payment, that ship has sadly sailed for most people. Hell, I bought this house at about a 1:3.5 ratio and my payment was over 40% of my salary. I feel like all the old, smart rules of thumb are to be questioned these days.
Ouch, I can see why you're wary of a 1:5 ratio, in that case! I was seeing numbers around 30% at that ratio but I guess that's gonna depend heavily on mortgage rates in the time and place someone buys.
Those kind of numbers might have doable with the super low interest rates that we had 3-4 years ago or prior to the 2008 disaster. Maybe also if you lived in an area with extremely low property taxes and insurance rates. Knowing what my monthly mortgage payment was based on this house price, I can't believe there are people buying homes that cost double that aren't legit rich. I can only imagine those people are in dangerously precarious debt positions and are just living above their means.
The average income in Spain is roughly 30k, the median 24k-ish.
96k is not easily achievable by most.
Ha, I was under the impression housing was cheaper in Spain (outside of major metros like Madrid etc)
The word "Norwegian" is in the title already lol. Gotta spend that sweet sweet oil money somewhere.
I was being charitable in my interpretation :)
How "oil wealthy" are everyday Norwegian people?
I assume there are certain executives, some politicians, other people with connections, maybe some who invest early on, but in general, how much of this oil wealth goes to the rest of the population?
I realize you may not know this but I figured since we're taking about it here, I'd ask
Norwegians aren't super rich or anything. The wealth gap is smaller than a lot of countries though. You earn a lot more doing blue collar work here than you do else where, but you earn way less owning a business or being senior leadership.
Like the other commenter said, most of the money goes into public spending, for everyone. The Healthcare is good, the infrastructure is good, etc etc.
Yet after all that the post here sucks, unbelievable haha.
The government owns Equinor (previously Statoil), and all of the oil income not spent covering operational cost is transferred directly to the oil fund. Every year the government can spend up to 3% of the estimated value of the fund to cover budget deficits.
About 25% (approximately $50 billion USD) of Norways national budget for 2026 is money transferred from the oil fund, which is well within that 3% rule.
Nobody gets to withdraw "their share" from the oil fund directly, but it definitely makes it easier to keep social and government services funded without increasing taxes too much. Mind you that the general tax level is around 40-45% (according to this report from SSB: https://www.ssb.no/nasjonalregnskap-og-konjunkturer/konjunkturer/artikler/skattetrykk-og-offentlige-utgifter), which is comparable to (and on some points higher than) other countries in OECD
Edit: ah yeah, The Government Pension Fund is colloquially known as the oil fund.
I'm not Norwegian, but have you read about the Government Pension Fund of Norway?
I have not, but I will now. Thank you for sharing.
Oh, I'm just being tongue-and-cheek. I don't think the average Norwegian is directly wealthy from the oil fund.
[Buzz Lightyear] Tubes. Tubes everywhere.... [/Buzz Lightyear]