Immigration and Europe's Housing Crisis

Into Europe: Why young people can't afford homes.

0:00 Introduction
1:01 1- Why Europe is Missing Homes
4:27 2- Why Aren't We Building More Homes?
6:32 3- How do we tackle the Housing Crisis?
8:12 4- Are there short term fixes?
10:06 Support Into Europe!

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[g.zoltan]

It's interesting for this discussion to mention Eastern Europe.

Here, immigration is not significant, yet we see the same unaffordability in major cities. An explanation in Hungary for example is urbanization. In the 2000's, countryside houses were cheaper and city houses were more expensive. Now in 2024, city houses are incredibly expensive and village houses are incredibly cheap. What changed is that everyone wants to move to the big city.

Many of my friends who decided to stay in the capital have 0 savings, and those who could move to the countryside are already homeowners starting a family.

[GhanYt]

Our economy struggling with uncertainties, housing issues, foreclosures, global fluctuations, and pandemic aftermath, causing instability. Rising inflation, sluggish growth, and trade disruptions need urgent attention from all sectors to restore stability and stimulate growth

[Ludix]

One factor that I would have liked you address is internal migration, or the fact that people are moving to the cities from rural areas. It seems like the housing crisis isn't nearly as bad in the countryside, it's just that it doesn't make sense for many people to live there anymore, as more and more people work office jobs

[kenkrak]

Here's the thing - even in countries with much lower immigration, housing prices have skyrocketed. This is because the supply of potential housing has a constraint - you can only build so many within a reasonable distance to the city center. Meanwhile, yes, demand has skyrocketed due to multiple reasons including immigration, short term rentals etc., but mainly because the stupendous amount of capital flowing into the market from market players that view housing as an investment rather than a home. There is a fix for this, but the issue is it is easy to find loopholes in it: limit the number of houses that one can own as an investment vehicle. You can bet your ass that you'll see house prices drop rapidly... and/or massively invest into infrastructure (mostly public transport) so that the area of 'reasonable distance' (i.e. within 25-40min) can cover a larger territory.

[Leugim]

It’s so nice to have a proper non-alt right video that mentions the effects of immigration without being overly careful with the topic

[undercoverduck]

There's entire streets in the city centre of Amsterdam that remain uninhabited and dark throughout the year because the people who bought that property used it as an investment rather than a place of residence. On top of hoarding precious resources they're also ruining the cityscape. Cities like Amsterdam truly shine at night when the window lights are reflected in the waters of the canals. Tough luck on that when those million dollar properties are empty.

[MetalOfYourBANAN]

The problem is clearly that housing has become an investment, so rich people buy house and rent them out. Most politicians are landlords...

[Ikbeneengeit]

The EU population has increased 1.4% total in the last 12 years, hardly a tsunami. In the Netherlands we have statistically more living space than ever before. The problem is, boomers have huge untaxed houses in cities, and the youth have none, and the countryside is emptying out. Allow urban densification and tax unnecessarily large houses.

[Samanier]

So basically we need back social housing

[rhrynq]

Houses have become investment assets. When a hedge fund comes into your city, buys up 1000 new apartments on the spot, well... good luck being a young family, looking for their new home. And more and more real-estate developers are building `investment` apartments which are minuscule in size, 20-25m2.
Corporations should not be allowed to own any real estate (apartments/ houses).
There should be a limit, on how many apartments/houses a person can own un-taxed. Above that limit property tax calculated on value of said property should rise exponentially.

[mateuszkarczewski]

I think there is one more reason you overlooked contributing to the crisis. That would be companies buying off many apartments in major cities as an investment to rent them out.

[alexandruavram-rusu]

Housing prices have exploded in big cities, where high-tech jobs have provided way higher wages than what you will find in smaller cities.

The solution would be either moving economic opportunities to more regions, encouraging 100% remote jobs, redevelopment of smaller citites into "dormitory citites" for bigger ones, and huge investments into public infrastructure.

[PremSteve-ygde]

Because so many people overpaid for homes even while loan rates were low, I believe there will be a housing catastrophe because these people are in debt. If housing costs continue to drop and, for whatever reason, they can no longer afford the property and it goes into foreclosure, they have no equity since, even if they try to sell, they will not make any money. I believe that many individuals will experience this, especially given the impending mass layoffs and rapidly rising living expenses.

[filipmihalovic]

There is a major issue with the immigrants theory. The housing costs have skyrocketed even in eastern european countries which have until the war in Ukraine accepted basically no immigrants.
The main reason behind the rise of the housing prices is imo demographics and the era of the 2010's with extremely low interest rates. Mortgage interest rates used to be lower than inflation and you could thus even earn money by taking a mortgage. Because of that housing began to be seen as a great investment both by individuals and by companies. This started the price hike which made the investments seem even better because the property prices sometimes even doubled within 10 years.
The european governments need to put regulations in place so that housing is once again used and bought primary for living and not for investments.

[markuserikssen]

The issue is that the private market has become so powerful that (up until recently) they could do whatever they want in countries like The Netherlands. There was not really an incentive for them to construct a lot of houses because a shortage of houses would increase the prices even more. Over the past few decades, private investors haven't added that many houses to the market as some may think. And due to new laws, owning and constructing properties becomes less attactive, so investors just simply stop funding many projects. It shows that they only care about the money (surprise surprise!), so that's why we shouldn't give them too much power. The private market simply failed, and many young people have to face the consequences of this mismanagement, partly caused by former Housing Minister Stef Blok, who got rid of the complete Ministry of Housing. Social housing corporations should build the fast majority of affordable housing for the lower/middle class again, like they did in the past.

[youbelonginamuseum]

the lack of housing facilities is not the main issue. The problem is that many of them are empty and used exclusively for speculation by large concentrated groups. Best known examples could be the thousand of empty luxury buildings along the spanish coast. Immigration is not the main issue...

[ChristiaanHW]

the housing crises (in Europe) is multifaceted.
you have (among other smaller reasons):
- people/investors buying available "stock" as an investment and trying to get as much profit as possible out of it.
and sometimes it's even done by letting a percentage of your stock sitting empty to drive up the prices of the stock you do rent out. (or sell).
because less demand means higher prices.
- not enough new houses being build to keep up with the population growth.
this could be because of government rules/policy, climate change, or investors/people not building the required amount on purpose to have prices go higher and higher.
- and of course the more people your take in form other countries, the more demand for housing there will be. and if you're already behind on the supply of housing, that extra demand is only going to make the shortage bigger.
- not enough houses being build because building produces greenhouse gasses, and some countries f'ed up and made their climate goals so strict that everything else comes second to those goals.

a few things that could be done are:
- having a law that requires houses to be lived in. so no houses sit empty, just to drive up the prices.
- putting a cap on immigration that is linked to the supply of housing. as long as there isn't enough supply, pause immigration (except for the few people that you really need to fill jobs like doctors).
and when you're back to enough houses for the current amount of citizens, only allow as much immigration as the surplus of houses that are build each year. this way there won't be a future shortage.
- declaring a national emergency, to make building more housing easier and a priority for the government.

the big problem (like with everything) is that these things will hurt the people with money and the people in positions in power. and we all know that top often these people are able to make governments do their bidding, over the backs of the "normal" people.

[tobiascornille]

Maybe a land value tax could be interesting to reduce vacant houses, speculation on the housing market, and in general landowners profiting off the young & poor.
Also, making it easier to build from a regulatory POV definitely seems necessary: NIMBY-ism definitely isn't exclusive to the US/UK.

[Lucas_Ficz]

As an architect specialized in the real-estate market, what I can safely say is that the housing crisis’ single cause is the speculation behind real-estate and its rapid valuation over time. It is ridiculous sometimes, if you stop to think about it, how a wrecked 19th century apartment in the champs elisées can cost ten times more than a villa in rural Spain.

[IamJonny-ov]

I'm hoping there will be a housing crisis so I can buy cheaply when I sell a few houses in 2025. As a backup plan, I've been thinking about purchasing stocks. What advice do you have for choosing the best buying time? On the one hand, I continue to read and see trading earnings of over $500k each week. On the other side, I keep hearing that the market is out of control and experiencing a dead cat bounce. Why does this happen?