Kuwaitis building fourth floor for their newlywed children to avoid high rents

Kuwaitis building fourth floor for their newlywed children to avoid high rents

By Ghadeer Ghloum

KUWAIT: As housing prices continue to rise, it is becoming increasingly difficult for young couples to afford renting their own apartments. In Kuwait, many Kuwaiti newlyweds find themselves struggling to pay high rentals while waiting to receive their government houses, which often leads to financial stress. So Kuwaiti families have adopted a potential solution that can alleviate this problem, which is building an extra floor in the parents’ house for newly married couples. Such an arrangement provides benefits for both the newlyweds and their parents.

By living in the same household with their parents, the couple can receive practical and emotional support and lower living costs, since parents usually let the couples live for free or pay nominal rent. Despite the multiple benefits of this move for Kuwaiti families, some people discourage this, especially when houses exceed three floors.

Ayoub Al-Saffar, a real estate consultant said: “This phenomenon is spreading among Kuwaitis due to the housing crisis, which has forced people to build a fourth floor on top of their private houses for their newly married children to live near them and prevent paying high rent. This step is related to two main factors: The high cost of housing and