Owning a home in Skopje is becoming a dream that, for more and more people, stays exactly that - a dream. According to the latest figures from the National Bank, cited by the opposition Levica, flat prices in Skopje have jumped 13.3 percent in a single year. The result is predictable: more and more citizens are pushed out of any chance to buy their own flat and forced to live in rented homes.

The 13.3 percent figure isn't abstract - it is the difference between being able and not being able to afford a home. When wages rise slowly and flats rise fast, the maths is brutal: each year it takes more years of saving for the same square metre. And in the meantime, rent eats up the very money that should be turning into a deposit for a home of one's own.

Levica calls it condemning citizens to a life of renting - and no matter who says it, the core of the problem is real. Housing affordability is not a party issue; it is one of the most direct measures of how much an economy works for the ordinary person. When a young family can't imagine owning a home, it isn't just fleeing the flats - it is fleeing the idea that it's worth staying and building a life here.

The question that rarely gets a real answer is what the state is doing about this. Subsidies, social housing, market regulation, curbing speculation - the tools exist, but the political will usually only reaches as far as a press release. While prices rise and solutions stay on paper, the young solve the problem their own way - with a suitcase and a one-way ticket. That is the most expensive rent the state pays; only the bill arrives later.