{"id":234598,"date":"2025-12-15T21:24:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-15T21:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/234598\/"},"modified":"2025-12-15T21:24:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T21:24:10","slug":"mortgage-crisis-what-are-europeans-cutting-back-on-to-make-ends-meet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/234598\/","title":{"rendered":"Mortgage crisis: What are Europeans cutting back on to make ends meet?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Soaring housing costs are fast becoming the Grinch of Europe, dampening people’s desires to make social plans for Christmas.<\/p>\n

Around 75% of Europeans say they’ve had to cut back on spending just to keep up with mortgage payments in the past 12 months, according to a survey among more than 20,000 people in 23 countries.<\/p>\n

Ireland and Hungary are feeling the squeeze especially hard, as a striking 90% of homebuyers there report having tightened their belts, says the 2025 Housing Trend Report.<\/p>\n

Romanians and Malteses are faring even worse, with 93% saying they’ve had to cut back, while Italy leads the pack of Europe’s big five economies with an 86% rate.<\/p>\n

Home alone: Who’s skipping Christmas dinner?<\/p>\n

For more than one in four people surveyed by RE\/MAX Europe (26%), financial constraints are strong enough to dull the motivation to host any Christmas gatherings.<\/p>\n

The Finnish \u2014 one of the few populations where poverty rates have gone up<\/strong> <\/a>since 2015 \u2014 are the most hesitant to open their homes, with a solid 40% opting for low-key festivities.<\/p>\n

Similarly, at least one in three Romanians (35%) and Hungarians (33%) would rather spend Christmas behind closed doors.<\/p>\n

But the financial strain of Christmas get-togethers also affects guests, who tend to spend 2.3 hours on the road to celebrate with their loved ones.<\/p>\n

Turkish residents take the longest trips, stretching to 4.5 hours on average.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Dutch enjoy short trips of just 1.3 hours, and 40% of respondents in general face journeys under an hour.<\/p>\n

The journey is often shortest for those living alone, with 25% living within 30 minutes of their destination.<\/p>\n

Keep the party going or stay home: Which Europeans cut back on what?<\/p>\n

Date nights, clubbing, and festivals are the first casualties of the cost-of-living crunch, with 41% of Europeans sacrificing outings for mortgage payments.<\/p>\n

The cut runs deepest in Greece, where nearly six out of 10 people (58%) slashed their night-time budgets, while most Lithuanians see that as a non-starter (21%).<\/p>\n

Food treats and alcohol take second place on the chopping block, with 38% of respondents saying they’re reducing indulgences, and a peak of 61% in Malta.<\/p>\n

Holidays come in third (37%), with more than half of Polish (52%) and Irish citizens (51%) planning to stay home. Again, this is not an option for the Lithuanians, with only one in 10 people cancelling holiday plans due to mortgage payments.<\/p>\n

Other budget-saving measures affect clothes (cited by 29% of people), electronics (26%), subscription services like Netflix or Spotify (25%) and hobbies (22%).<\/p>\n

Strikingly, 13% admit cutting back on everyday essentials, including toiletries, with Germany and Finland way above the average, each reporting 22%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Soaring housing costs are fast becoming the Grinch of Europe, dampening people’s desires to make social plans for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":234599,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174],"tags":[79,116065,2190,2594,179,18,1015,7336,8752,19,17],"class_list":{"0":"post-234598","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-christmas-holidays","10":"tag-cost-of-living","11":"tag-data","12":"tag-economy","13":"tag-eire","14":"tag-europe","15":"tag-housing-market","16":"tag-housing-crisis","17":"tag-ie","18":"tag-ireland"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115725694688589157","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}