After four years of freedom it took some getting used to. As a student in Groningen, Sjoerd Lenferink did not have to take anyone into account, in Tubbergen he fell back into a household where the food is on the table every day at 5 p.m. Usually he doesn’t save that, says Sjoerd (25), making a pot of coffee in the kitchen. On busy days, the travel time from his work in Enschede is soon 45 minutes. Then, like tonight, he only eats his warmed meal at the table.
It was a conscious choice to live with his parents again at the age of 23. A “safe choice,” he says, who coincided with his first job. He was able to work as an adviser almost immediately after his graduation Corporate Finance And wanted to get used to working life. “I thought: when I live at home, I don’t have to worry about many things.”
Another reason was that he could save. His parents do not think it is necessary that he contributes financially to the household. His father, Sjoerd says laughing, gets angry when he pays the groceries once. He has since been able to pay off his study debt. How much he can save now? He thinks aloud. “No rent, telephone and fuel card from work … I think 2,000 euros a month.”
Growing care
Everywhere in the Netherlands, young people struggle with finding their own home. The overheated housing market and debts due to the loan system have made the search for a room, rental or owner-occupied home for twenties extremely difficult. They stay, sees the CBSlive at home longer. There are growing concerns, for example with the Social Economic Council and the Dutch Youth Instituteabout the consequences. Sociologists see a generation that lacks freedom and independence and plans such as living together or postponing children. A generation that comes to a standstill.
But there are places such as the municipality of Tubbergen (Overijssel, 21,000 inhabitants). The housing shortage is also high there, but living at home for a long time is a habit rather than a problem. In Tubbergen, 90.5 percent of 20 to 25-year-olds have not yet flown out, compared to 57 percent nationwide. The percentage of 42.6 percent is also well above the national average of 20 percent among 25 to 30-year-olds.
Nobody really surprises in the village of Tubbergen. The fact that children fly here a little later is a kind of tradition, it sounds on a winter afternoon in the shopping street. “They are doing well at home,” says the saleswoman of a business for home decorations. “People live outside, there is plenty of room.”
Many young people who NRC speaks, should not think of a life outside of Tubbergen. You have everything here: friends, shops, the football and volleyball club, say two people in their twenties who fill the shelves of the Hema. A woman jokes about her son that he becomes restless when he loses sight of the church tower. A mother of three daughters says that her youngest spontaneously starts singing when they enter the village after a vacation. Sure, she says, the youth wants to leave in the long run. “But it’s not a punishment if it doesn’t work immediately.”
The rest of the family has usually already eaten as Sjoerd Lenferink (25) comes home from his work
Photos Wouter de Wilde
Ideal image
The offer for starters in Tubbergen lags behind the demand, sees Bart Vennegoor of Home Makelaars, twenty years in the profession and grew up in the municipality. There are relatively few rental properties, he says. And there are new construction plans, but not much. Especially after the credit crisis in 2008, it “gone very fast” with house prices. Realizing a “moving wish” is increasingly difficult. Starters must compete with restarters – with more own money – and sometimes with buyers from the West. Yesterday, Vennegoor says, he sold a large semi-detached, who was not for sale for three weeks. “The turnover rate is high. You used to be able to negotiate quietly and you had much more choice. ” Certainly with ‘ready -to -move -in homes’, overbidding is the norm.
Many young people, according to conversations in the village, dreams of their own new -build house within the municipal boundaries. They continue to live at home and save until that goal has been achieved. The municipality lends a hand and offers starters’ plots for 80 percent of the original price. It says something, thinks the 26-year-old Olivier Gillis, about the high standard of living of the youth in Tubbergen. Maybe from the whole society. “If you really want your own place, there are plenty of options, but they do not meet the ideal image. We immediately want to achieve the best of the best, with little input a lot. ”
He himself returned to his parental home to be able to invest in fit with Ollie, his own company. He previously lived in rooms in Amsterdam, The Hague and Almelo. He liked that, but sometimes life in the city was quite anonymous. “I missed a certain fun.” In a year or two, Olivier hopes to live on its own again, preferably near his sports boutique in the village. Now that is not practical, also because he is single. “It is difficult on your own.”
If there had been no pandemic, the life of Sjoerd Lenferink would probably have run differently. He did an international study, but because of Corona a foreign minor was not in it. His mother afterwards, also joined at the kitchen table, finds that a bit sad for him. She had not seen her oldest return again. “I thought he goes into the wide world, we see it occasionally at the weekend.” She likes it with four, her youngest son (22) still lives at home. For the time being she will not encourage them to leave. “As long as we can help the boys, we help.”
She takes that she has to cook much more food now.
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