📋 Tender Overview
The Youths in Housing conference was held today by the Ministry for Social and Affordable Housing in collaboration with the National Youth Council where a space was given to young people to make their voices heard on the reality they are experiencing in the housing market. property while giving rise to a discussion based on various studies that have been presented by different researchers on the subject. The Minister for Social and Affordable Housing Roderick Galdes opened this conference which is the first of its kind stressing the importance of constantly having a dialogue with young people to design a policy that truly addresses challenges. We have been following the figures for several months and doing our studies to better understand the challenges that exist in terms of affordability. In the last legislature we launched various schemes to help more people become homeowners and we will continue to launch more schemes to see more people particularly young people become homeowners for the first time said Minister Galdes. He explained that in recent years there has been an increase in collaboration between the Government and local banks with the aim of better understanding how the market is changing. He argued that where before the majority of bank customers used to be couples today we are seeing a different reality where the majority of customers are single people approaching banks to access loans and become homeowners. He added that the age of many individuals approaching banks is that of about 30 years or more. The Minister stated that the fact that 80 of Maltese households are homeowners is encouraging a figure which means that the enhancement of value is in the interest of the absolute majority of Maltese. He went on to say that in recent years the rate of first-time buyers has remained constant. This conference is an important step forward and in the short term we will be launching more measures to further address affordability because we believe that everyone has the right to have an adequate home to live in concluded Minister Galdes. Addressing the conference the Parliamentary Secretary for Youth Research and Innovation Keith Azzopardi Tanti stressed how important the topic of Youth in Housing is and that as a Government committed to giving it more important in order to better understand what the challenges are in particular for young people. The wish of every young man and woman is that after a certain time they will have independence and have their place. We have all gone through this time of bringing certain sacrifices particularly at the beginning of this journey. A journey that is constantly changing even in the light of the new realities we are living in concluded Parliamentary Secretary Keith Azzopardi Tanti.
