A place of their own…or how the crisis in the Dutch housing market is driving young adults towards their own home in Italy.

A cautious trend is emerging. But a very logical one, given the situation on the Dutch housing market. The frustration that we can't go anywhere with quite a bit of our own money in the Netherlands without putting ourselves up to our necks in mortgage debt, prompts people in their twenties and thirties to look across the border to a place that is really all their own. Because that is a feeling that many people have, it is almost a necessity: we want something of our own, our own place, where we determine what it will look like. And preferably without debts.

It doesn't have to be finished, it doesn't have to be perfect: we are young, we can do a lot ourselves and we have the time. As long as there is good internet… then there is. But luckily that's getting better and better in Italy in the meantime. Working from home is becoming more and more the rule than the exception and why not while looking out over our own olive grove?

How did I get this idea? My own son, partly raised in Italy but already years in the Netherlands, said very firmly: “Buy something in the Netherlands? No way... ridiculous prices and in debt for the rest of your life. If I buy something, it will be in Italy. There you have something nice around € 50,000…” I can only agree with him. There is plenty on offer, especially for those who have an eye for potential and are not upset about a dated interior or gray plastered exterior walls.

Another young couple that I'm currently advising came up with exactly the same story: in their early thirties, already a nice sum saved and the great desire to find a house where they can say: this is ours. Not from the bank, not from a landlord, but from us. I hear it more and more and the great thing is that the knife cuts both ways. There are certainly still nice buildings to be found for a more than reasonable price, especially in the atmospheric Borgo's where Italy is so rich. It is precisely these Borgos that are getting a real face-lift thanks to the increasing number of people who choose a house within the city walls. A trend that reinforces itself.

Of course, the additional advantages of having your own place in Italy are a bonus: the climate, the sun that also provides warmth in January, the peace and quiet and space, the delicious food and, not to forget, the human dimension. In short: quality of life. A quality that is increasingly perceived as urgent, also by the younger generations.