The housing affordability crisis is going global

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. DUBLIN—When Mikey Cullen’s parents were in their early 20s, they earned enough as public-sector workers to buy a house in the city. Today, Cullen is a 27-year-old high-school teacher who lives with his mother.

Cullen had been sharing a house with nine roommates, but he moved back home when he realized he couldn’t afford his own place even in the cheaper parts of Dublin. Renting a one-bedroom apartment, he said, would consume most of his paycheck, and buying something was out of the question because the median home price is eight times his annual salary. Many Irish of his generation are in a similar bind.

Fifty-nine percent of Irish adults ages 20 to 34 were living with their parents in 2022, up from 38% a decade earlier—the largest increase among major European countries, according to a report commissioned by the Irish government. “The price in Ireland is mental," Cullen said. “Owning a home isn’t feasible." The housing affordability crisis that has frustrated young Americans for a decade has now taken hold in many big cities in Europe and beyond.

The common threads: robust job growth, rising demand and not enough new development, causing rents and sales prices rising faster than wages. Globally, homes are now less affordable than they were in the run-up to the 2008 housing crisis, according to research published by the International Monetary Fund. The research compared median household income with the income required for an average-price home across 40 countries.