"Nearly 50 percent of young Bulgarians live with their parents, while in Denmark only 4 percent of young people over 18 live with relatives. The situation is worse is in Croatia, where 65 percent of youngsters share dwellings with their parents,“ commented on BNR Prof. Iskra Dandolova, housing policy analyst, on the occasion of the latest EUROSTAT report on housing issues in Bulgaria.

 "However, this situation is changing, with the emerging trend for young people to live alone in the city more frequently, albeit in small rented dwellings. There is also a tendency towards people going back to the villages. But a real obstacle to this trend is that there are no jobs for young people in rural areas. There yet another trend in our country – an increasingly rigid social stratification. And that's why there are some 12 percent of people who live in overly spacious apartments or houses and others who live in cramped lodgings," Dandolova told Horizont Before Noon radio show.

The expert also commented that many young people have fled abroad precisely because they cannot to buy a home:

"In the past, there were so-called ‘mutual benefit funds’ that gave loans for buying a home. But they went bankrupt and the young Bulgarians continued to live with their parents".

According to the expert, the most serious problem is the rigid social stratification in housing policy:

 "There are millionaires who have many and huge homes, even abroad, and others, who cannot afford living in luxury gated communities - this has divided people in our country. This is not the typical pattern of life for Bulgarians, who have always lived under almost identical housing conditions and together, and social division was not so noticeable," Prof. Dandolova concluded.