4.2.First Home

According to their latest annual report, local authorities received over 130,000 applications from young adults in 2015 for ANL homes (NHA, 2016). Although the number is so high, during 2015 only 733 units were finalised (NHA, 2016). This shows an inability of the authorities to provide enough ANL homes.

4.2. First Home

After the economic crisis, the housing market stalled and the Government had to create in 2009 a new programme to counter the effects (TENLAW, 2014). It is called First Home and it supports new homebuyers through state guaranteed loans (TENLAW, 2014). It aims to help the construction industry recover and the maximum state guaranteed loan is 60 000 euro for old dwellings and 70 000 euro for new ones (Government, 2016). The new homes are VAT exempted if they are under 120 m2 and do not cost more than 90.000 euro (TENLAW, 2014). Although the programme aims to build new homes, until 2014 it did not have the intended result as 95% of the mortgages were taken for buying old dwellings and just 5% for new buildings (TENLAW, 2014). According to the Romanian Government (2016), this programme, from June 2009 to August 2013, guaranteed 99 600 loans for a total of 3.871 million euros (Government, 2016). This means around 20 000 loans per year.

In conclusion, there are several programmes available to young adults in need of housing. The criteria based on points could lead to the exclusion of certain individuals, such as the unmarried and poorly educated. There are no public/private partnership initiatives and this does not seem to have been explored as a possible solution. In addition, there is a discrepancy between the demand for dwellings and the capacity of the government to provide them. Neither the ANL nor the First Home initiative are producing homes at the rate that is required. The data indicates that the First Home initiative is more efficient than the ANL programmes. By analysing the information, the ANL provided in 2015, 733 units while First Home provides around 20 000 state guaranteed loans per year, for acquiring a home. Even if 5% of the loans are for new buildings, as mentioned before, that means that with the First Home loans, approximately 1000 new dwellings are built per year.