Stuck at home: Thousands of young Hungarians unable to move out due to COVID

The pandemic has had a profound effect on the housing market, holding numerous people back from leaving the nest or, to a lesser extent, purchasing their first home.

As vg.hu writes, according to the data collected by Rentingo, a community platform for apartment letting and rental, the proportion of 18-25-year-olds among tenants in Budapest has dropped from 56% in 2019 to 35% in 2021.

The number of young adults sharing a rental with others has also decreased by 15%: in 2019, 66% of such occupants were aged 18-25 compared with 51% in 2021.

Based on a dataset of over 30,000 tenants, these figures indicate that thousands of Hungarians have had to delay or temporarily give up on the idea of moving out.

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The pandemic has also influenced the housing prospects of the middle-aged generation:

their share among tenants has grown from 21% to 35%, meaning that a large number of 30-50-year-olds have had to opt for renting a place rather than purchasing their own, due to the rising prices, job losses, and other factors.

Rentingo has also mapped the path that most people take when it comes to leaving their childhood home: unsurprisingly, the youth prefers to move in with roommates first and only rent their own place later on. As the data show, women tend to begin this process at a younger age: the majority (61%) of 18-25-year-olds living in shared apartments are women, while the figures are practically reversed when the slightly older group, aged 25 to 30, is examined.

While it is easy to identify the factors that hinder today’s young adults in becoming independent at a “socially acceptable” age, such as the lack of affordable housing and the higher level of education necessary for stable, well-paying jobs, compared with the situation of previous generations,

experts warn of the risks of not leaving the parental home past a certain age.

Psychologist Melinda Teveiné Horváth told femina.hu that those who do not take the plunge soon enough are likely to become overly comfortable, with their flexibility and adaptability decreasing, which are indispensable personality traits for a successful relationship. Consequently, the longer young people remain at home, the less chance they have of ever moving out, explained Teveiné Horváth.

Read alsoIncredible! The number of apartment purchases hits decade peak in Hungary

Source: vg.hu