If you thought rents outrun salaries only around here, look at neighboring Croatia. It has become the champion of the European Union in rent increases - renting a flat there this year is a full 22 percent more expensive than last year, the biggest jump among all member states.

The number is dramatic, but the story behind it is familiar to anyone living in the region. In recent years Croatia went through a tourism boom, eurozone entry and an influx of foreign buyers that pushed up both sale and rental prices. The result: the local population, especially the young, finds it ever harder to get an affordable flat in their own country.

For Macedonia, this is more than news from the neighborhood - it is a mirror of a trend that is accelerating here as well. Skopje has watched for years as the rent for a decent apartment overtakes average incomes, while young people stay with their parents longer or leave abroad. Croatia merely shows the next stage of the same disease: when an apartment becomes an investment for foreigners instead of a home for locals, the price is paid by those who can least afford it.

The question the whole region keeps dodging is simple: what does the state do when housing becomes unaffordable for its own citizens? Croatia, despite EU and eurozone membership, has no ready answer. And if the richest Balkan success story is struggling with the same thing, it is hard to believe anyone here has a solution ready in a drawer. Until then, the young will keep measuring rent against salary - and losing more and more often.