Living, buying and renting in 2023

Good and also bad news

Will it finally become a bit easier to buy a house this year? Prices seem to be falling and in some ways, life is smiling at you as a young homebuyer. And then again, not. I will outline the main points.

The good

1. Dual earners can borrow more
Recently, a single and self-employed acquaintance of mine heard from the realtor that as a single, she could forget about buying a home. I found that a rather unliberated statement, but it does indicate how terribly difficult it is to buy a house in this time. If you have someone with whom you want to buy a house, you can at least borrow a bit more this year than last year. And the second income used to be counted for only 90 percent when determining the mortgage, and that has now become 100 percent.

2. Exemption for starters is increasing
If you are under 34 and buy a house for less than 440,000 euros, you do not have to pay 2 percent transfer tax. The condition is also that you will actually live in that house, but that seems quite logical to me.

3. Rent allowance is increasing
To compensate for overall inflation, this year as a tenant (if you qualify for rent allowance) you will receive more back.

4. Ceiling for gas and electricity
If you almost went bankrupt due to your gas bill in 2022 (which suddenly was higher than your rent), this year a ceiling has been set by the government, and therefore you will never pay more than your average consumption.

The bad

1. Getting help from your parents will become difficult
Previously, your parents could give you a tax-free gift (also known as the jubilee ton) which provided a nice base for the purchase of a house. That was 106,671 euros and is suddenly reduced to 27,231 euros. No idea where this idea suddenly comes from, but I find it petty and unfortunate because this could be just the push that so many starters need who are already having a hard time.

2. Mortgage interest deduction is decreasing
If you have an income lower than €79,031 (which seems quite plausible to me as a starter), everything remains the same. But if you earn more than €73,031, you can deduct a maximum of 37 percent of your mortgage.

3. Subsidy for insulating measures
It depends a bit on what you have done, but with two insulating measures you could get back about 30 percent of your costs, and with one insulating measure (for example, your floor) you get back 15 percent of the costs. The more you do, the more you get back. And save.