>buy a house You mean buy multiple houses? Because, at least here, that is the problem. People having 1 house to live in and grow old in is a not a bad idea im

>buy a house You mean buy multiple houses? Because, at least here, that is the problem. People having 1 house to live in and grow old in is a not a bad idea imho; the idea that you need to sell that for a lot of profit and then 'go into real estate' is an issue. Britons are mostly spoonfed on that idea so they (the ones I know, obviously but also what I see on tv) sell their first property (mostly in London) for a killing and then start buying up multiple properties; few in the country side (usually do-er uppers), few in france, few in Spain, Greece etc. If you sell your house for instance in London and you make (because people do this when want to retire / paid off the mortgage) Gbp600k (the average price of a house in London) you can buy 3-8 houses were I live (and they do). Those become airbnbs or (illegal) rentals (b&bs) and ruin the neigborhoods + drive up house prices as people tend to bring their friends. This place is a ghost town in the winter and, with Covid, it is now too in the summer as no-one lives here; it's all rentals. That and the idea that this is an 'easy gold mine' even though they have to work like maniacs to sustain these properties, make sure everything works, receive the guests etc which is just really hard (for most people, but esp people over 60) and can fall over any day even without covid, but it very much does with covid. Many are panic selling etc which now hopefully will give some locals a house for the (until now) live-in kids, but probably speculators will just come and buy them.