FUENLABRADA (Spain) - EQUIPPED with tents and blankets, hundreds of people have camped out round-the-clock for the chance to buy flats which a Spanish property developer plans to sell at discount prices.

The queue, which now stretches for over one kilometre, started forming outside of Mr Jose Moreno's office in Fuenlabrada near Madrid on Sunday after he unveiled plans to build 2,100 flats which he will then sell at just over cost.

A self-styled 'Robin Hood', the bearded and bespectacled 58-year-old will on Saturday accept deposits of 120 euros (S$230) for the apartments on a on a first-come-first-serve basis.

The flats of between 70 and 90 square metres, which will include a parking spot and a communal swimming pool, will be sold for between 120,000 and 168,000 euros.

Similar sized apartments in the city of some 200,000 people - the hometown of Liverpool striker Fernando Torres - usually sell for at least 200,000 euros.

The offer is valid only for those between the ages of 18 and 35, or who have been recently divorced, who do not own any other properties.

Mr Moreno, who comes from a modest background, said he wants to help those who have less means to buy a house in Spain, where property prices have more than doubled over the past decade as low euro zone interest rates fueled sales.

'Maybe this had to do with all that I suffered in the past. I have always fought for social and union causes,' he told AFP.

'The salary of a worker does not even begin to cover a mortgage on a house. How can you pay 1,500 or 2,000 euros a month if you only earn 1,000 euros? It is a disgrace,' he added.

The Bank of Spain has said in recent years that house prices were 35 per cent overvalued.

While the global credit crunch has led to a drop in housing sales by making it harder to get a mortgage, housing prices have held steady.

'I came with tent and everything else on the first day, I knew it would be like this,' said Ms Angela Tobon, a 32-year-old immigrant from Colombia, who together with her three-month-old baby daughter, was fourth in the line.

To pass the time she talks to her neighbours in an improvised common area created by setting up plastic sheets between the tents that has small camping tables and hammocks.

Saray, 19, said she was confident that she will be able to buy a flat where she can live with her partner and son even though she only joined the line on Wednesday.

She is number 2,219 in the list of names of those standing in line but may still get lucky if enough people drop out.

'If it does not work out, it was just three days of camping,' she said before breaking out into a smile.

Mr Moreno said he will take the names of up to 5,000 people. Those who do not make the cut will still be able to make a free provisional reservation for a flat which he says will cost just three per cent above what it costs to build.

'That is a lot. Why ask for more?,' he asked.

Mr Moreno, who has made a similar offer of budget-priced flats, has said that other builders could follow his example but they are focused on making a bigger profit.

Ms Dolores Hernandez was guarding the first and second place in the line for her two sons, who are both in their early thirties and who have not been able to afford a flat even though one of them holds down two jobs.

'He (Mr Moreno) knows what it is like not to have a house, he lived in a shanty town,' she said. -- AFP