I turned 25 this week.

It is around this age that people start to ask the same questions: what do you do, who are you with, where do you live?

The last one, in particular, seems to carry a certain weight.

By 25, there is an expectation you have moved out. That you have some version of independence. I haven’t.

DUP man’s praise for GAA points way to shared future - The Irish News view

Chris Donnelly: Take action on powerful e-bikes now before another life is lost

I still live at home with my parents and, truthfully, I enjoy it. It is comfortable, and financially it makes far more sense.

But there is also a part of me that feels like I am missing something.

That living independently is a milestone I have yet to reach. Not the half-step of student housing, where home is still only a short journey away, but the full version: your own place, your own routines, your own responsibility.

It feels, in theory, like a natural next step. In practice, it is anything but.

Moving out in Northern Ireland is no longer just a personal decision. It is a financial calculation – and increasingly, it’s one that doesn’t add up.

Figures published this week show that rents across Northern Ireland have increased by an average of 51% over the past five years, with the average monthly cost rising from around £650 in 2020 to close to £1,000 by the end of last year.

Read more: Triangle Housing secures new funding facility to support development plans

In Belfast, the increase has been even more pronounced.

At the same time, wages have not kept pace. Tenants are now spending a larger proportion of their income on rent. In simple terms, it costs more to get less.

Securing a place has also become more difficult. Fewer properties are available, while demand continues to grow, with dozens of people often competing for a single rental.

Read more: Aoife Moore: Our pigheaded politicians are in denial about Ireland’s housing crisis

That creates a sense of urgency familiar to anyone who has searched recently: applications submitted within minutes, viewings booked and gone within hours, decisions made quickly, often with little room to think.

When the alternative is having nowhere to live, the choice does not always feel like a choice.

Against that backdrop, moving out starts to feel less like an exciting next chapter and more like a risk.

Renting, for many, feels like money that disappears as quickly as it is earned, making it harder to save for anything more stable.

Buying is no easier. House prices remain high, deposits are difficult to build and the threshold for entry continues to move.

So people stay where they are.

Not always because they want to, but because it is the most practical option available.

There is a tendency to frame this as a generational reluctance to leave home, as if people in their twenties are choosing comfort over independence.

Read more: Emerging trends in Northern Ireland’s real estate market

But that does not quite reflect reality.

For many, the desire to move out is there. What is missing is a realistic way of doing it.

Which leaves people in a strange in-between: old enough to feel like you should be living differently, young enough to still be told there is time.

It is not necessarily a bad place to be, but it is not quite what was expected either.

© The Irish News