FOR half the price of the average Australian home, you can own a luxury property in Spain outright, and it comes complete with citizenship.

Yes, it's true.

In an attempt to offload debts crippling Spanish banks, the nation's government will offer residency rights to foreign property buyers who spend more than more than 160,000 euros ($A197,000).

While $200,000 wouldn't even buy a studio apartment in most Australian capital cities, it's more than ample for a luxury home in upmarket parts of Spain, including beachfront suburbs.

Russian and Chinese buyers are being targeted but it is understood the real estate scheme will be available to all foreigners, and may include residency for the entire European Union.

"We have proposed to the other ministries that for residents who acquire a home in Spain for more than 160,000 euro that will automatically entail a residency permit," Spanish Trade Minister Jaime Garcia-Legaz said in an article published by British newspaper The Times this week.

With some five million Spaniards out of work, the number of people unable to maintain repayments and forced to leave their homes continues to rise, with reports claiming 300 evictions per day in the first half of 2012.

In November, Spain's government announced a two-year halt to evictions of vulnerable home owners after the practice was linked to acts of suicide.

Spain's residency offer, which aims to revive the construction industry, is more attractive than similar schemes in Ireland and Portugal where buyers are offered such rights only after buying houses worth more than 400,000 euro or 500,000 euro respectively.

Bad debt in Spanish banks rose to a record 10.7 per cent of the loan total, about 182 billion euros ($A225.8 billion), in September, with institutions desperate to offload the crippling assets.