A broken housing market is driving inequality right across Europe – and fuelling the far right | Kirsty Major

HThe excitement is a personal problem as it happens. The houses are the place where we resort from the outside world, express ourselves, and build relationships and families. To buy or rent a house is to display your aspirations and dreams on bricks and mortar shells – Can we see ourselves sitting outside under the sun’s rays on this annihilation? It can also be a very frustrated process – can we bear this house? For more of us, the answer is no.

Experienced on this individual level, it is easy to think that the increasing costs are a special problem for your community, city, or country. But the prices of homes and rents that cannot be affiliated are an issue on the continent level. According to the European Parliament, from 2015 to 2023, at the absolute value, the prices of homes in the European Union It increased by a little less than 50 % On average. From 2010 to 2022, rents rose by 18 %.

As an editor, I wanted to know some stories behind these statistics, and as a person who lives in an expensive city (hello from London!), I hear some solutions. A group of housing experts has been assigned to contribute to a series, Housing crisis in EuropeDescribe the shape of the situation in some of the most expensive European cities.

Writes Agustín Cocola-Gant On how to encourage changes in politics after the 2008 financial crisis, wealthy foreigners encouraged the second homes or short -term rents in Lisbon, and the pricing of the local population outside their city. Now some Portuguese families rent rooms, not apartments.

In the reflection of the roles, the new arrivals are worse in Amsterdam, according to Amber Howard. The long -term population lives in safe social housing at reasonable prices, while young newcomers and expatriates are left, and they are often at a lower income, for the costly and unsafe private housing sector. While social housing shares decreased over time, private shares have increased as politicians sought to encourage the wealthy population to move to the city.

It is a similar story in Budapest. Social housing was sold after the end of the Cold War, and private ownership was driven by rejecting socialist values. What this means in practical practice is the investment of the oldest Hungarians in housing, raising prices and ego from young generations.

One city does not face the ability to withstand costs is Vienna. As Justin Kadi, since the twenties of the twentieth century, the city had a stable stock of social housing for tenants from all income. As in Amsterdam, newcomers are rented separately, but social housing had the impact of governing on rents.

You do not need to be an expert in housing to see the dynamics playing in the housing market in Europe. For more than 40 years, the housing policy has preferred those who invest in homes at the expense of those who live in it. This defect in power is the most important in countries with big institutional investors – such as private stocks, hedges, insurance and pension funds – as Tim White explores in his article.

When homes are not homes but rather origins, there is a transportation of wealth from those who do not have those who have. Throughout Europe – and many of the rest of the world – property has become a driving force for inequality. In turn, inequality is a driving force. The extremist right -wing politicians took advantage of this anger for their political gains, as reported by the Guardian newspaper in a previous series of reports from the front lines of Housing crisis in Europe. As the European Commissioner for Jobs and Social Rights, Nicholas Schmidt commented: “The housing problem He divides our societiesThis may be a threat to democracies. “

Housing policies are set at the national level, but the European Union can determine the frameworks and support access to financing. In 2024, all housing ministers of member states signed a declaration calling for “A new deal“Housing at reasonable and social prices.

There are solutions, there is political will, and at the same time, let us hope this series will go somewhat to help those who face housing that cannot be affected throughout Europe that they are not alone.