Housing crisis engulfs countries across Europe

In recent years, housing crises have become increasingly common across Europe, affecting countries of varying economic health. Portugal, Turkey and even wealthy Luxembourg face the common challenge of providing affordable and accessible housing for their citizens.

The decline in home ownership among young people in Portugal:

Home ownership among young people in Portugal has fallen by 50% over the past two generations. While 55% of those born between 1977 and 1986 owned a home by the age of 25, only just over a quarter of those born after 1997 were able to do so. This decline can be attributed to the real estate crisis, which has seen house prices rise by 8.7% over the last''Decade. Despite Portugal's relatively high ownership rate of 70%, this is mainly due to older generations making it difficult for young people to buy homes. Citizens are demanding government measures such as financial assistance for first-time buyers, building more affordable housing and rehabilitating abandoned neighborhoods.

Renting problems in Turkey:

In Turkey, rental costs have risen so rapidly over the past year that it has led to violence between landlords and tenants, with media reporting 11 dead and 46 injured. Rents have risen by an average of 121% over the past year, and in big cities such as Ankara and Istanbul they have risen by 188%. This is due to many factors, including the crisis''cost of living, high inflation and a flood of displaced people following the country's devastating earthquake in February. The government has set limits on residential rent increases of 25 percent for households and aligned them with official inflation for businesses. But experts say these measures only exacerbate tensions, leading many landlords to use any means, including illegal ones, to evict tenants and find new ones willing to pay higher prices. According to Turkish media, some 47,000 eviction proceedings and 100,000 others related to illegal rent increases were opened in the first six months of this year, double the number in the same period in 2022''year.

Even wealthy Luxembourg faces housing problems:

Luxembourg's residents may be described as the wealthiest in the European Union, but the excessively high cost of buying or renting a home in the country has made living there almost impossible for some.