Here in NL where I live there is this weird concept that the price of housing is not part of inflation. Whereas it is the single largest expense that people tend to have, before food and transportation. This is quite frustrating because people pay more and more in rent, 1000 euros / month is no longer exceptional, which leads to a crunch in the housing market and so combined with the low interest rates they are forced to continue to rent.

You can't win like that, if you're a single earner (because you are single or because only one of two spouses is working) then you're basically going to be squeezed for many years because you can not save enough for a downpayment.

This sort of treadmill is extremely hard to get out of and one false step or bad illness and you're in real trouble.

Meanwhile, rich people get to hand 105K euros tax free to their kids to buy a house of their own, and investors buy condos to rent back out at exorbitant prices because that's the only relatively risk free way of putting their savings to work.

It's really tough.