The truth is that in the last 4 years I started accepting the rain as part of life.

The times I have started considering the possibility of returning I have always ended up feeling as if, the only thing making me even want to consider it, was the fact that my family and old friends still live there. Nothing else.

I have no wish to move back to the pollution, the noise, the traffic, the general societal corruption, not being appreciated at work because your boss sees you as competition and the “U ijja!” mentality. And I don’t feel bad about it because I realised I fit in better here, and Malta is great as a holiday destination with the amazing sea, perfect weather and good food (although you could say the same about other places too).

But when I look at my Greek friends I feel bad. Greece is also very messed up, but in 95% of the cases they want to go back in some years and start a business or something of the sort. But I don’t, because I simply don’t see the point.

With all the things that happened in the last years I was hoping that in this general election things would change for the better and that I would find a reason to want to come back to Malta. So even though it was extremely inconvenient for me for work reasons, I still came to vote – full of hope that the Maltese would suddenly see the light and vote logically. But they didn’t.

I was also one of the people looking disappointed and defeated on the flight back. But the thought that kept buzzing through my mind was “How the hell can the majority of people be so ignorant as to not see what for me is blatantly obvious?”. There was no logic to it then and there still isn’t any logic to it now.

I hope that at some point we will all find at least one more good reason to move back. (Using your words) Till then, we will all just keep living the lives we have made for ourselves away from it all.

First of all, rent is going up because demand is stronger than supply. Owners rent their crappy 2 bed for 1000 euros simply because they can. Because someone is accepting that price. If nobody did, then they’d have to lower the price. This is the first lesson you learn in Economics.

Secondly, it makes no financial sense for an owner to rent a flat that in the current market costs 200K for a cent under 850 euros. They’d be better of selling it, and the new owner wouldn’t really afford to rent it for less than that anyway. It is not a private owner’s responsibility to provide housing at a financial loss, there’s social housing for that.

As Daphne stated, the market is indeed distorted by IIP and similar schemes that don’t add sustainable wealth to the country.

Remote gaming is NOT distorting the market, but rather influencing it. The growth in gaming has been quite sustainable till now, so the increased demand for accommodation is based on real generated wealth (at least for Malta).

Yes, it has.

If I were a foreigner reading your post from England, I’d think you were as desperate to leave Malta as the Africans in Ghana are.

My point is, has it become so bad?

I remember a negotiator working with the largest real estate agency in Malta, suggesting to us to put our property for sale above €380k for the citizenship applicants. buyers. Something which has inflated prices so much that couples with 3.5k net monthly still cannot find a decent house.

‘The President presides over the opening of an exhibition entitled Artemisia: 100 Remarkable Women, organised by the Network of Young Women Leaders, at San Anton Palace.’

https://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20170806/social/The-President-s-engagements.655012