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ENVIRONMENT

Heed the reed: thatcher scientist on mission to revive craft

Once upon a time many homes in the picturesque Burgenland wine-growing region of eastern Austria were thatched.

Heed the reed: thatcher scientist on mission to revive craft
Photo: Pixabay.

But now Jacobus van Hoorne’s house is the only one in the entire neighbourhood with a reed roof. And to get it approved he had to do battle for two years with the local authorities, culminating in having to set fire to a model thatched house to prove that his home wouldn’t be a fire hazard.

“You are practically not allowed to have reed roofs in Austria,” said Van Hoorne. “You have to find a way around it, which took a long time.”

Buoyed up by his legal victory, the CERN particle physicist turned thatcher hopes to revive the ancient art as a part of more sustainable house building — particularly as his reeds come from the region’s UNESCO-listed salt-water lake. 

“It’s not just a natural raw material, but it also has great insulating properties,” he told AFP. “A roof like that… is only made of reed and (steel) wire. It’s completely untreated. You can just compost it and recycle the wire.

“The nature, the material, the craft. It’s just beautiful,” he added.

A reed roof lasts about 40 years, said the Dutch-born scientist, and unlike conventional materials whose manufacture requires lots of carbon to be burned, reeds actually help store it.

Carbon captors

Like straw and earth they have an almost negligible carbon footprint, said Azra Korjenic, head of the Department of Ecological Building Technologies at the Vienna University of Technology.

In fact, marshlands and moors where reeds grow are some of the planet’s main carbon sinks, surpassing even forests and grasslands, according to the 2015 Soil Atlas.

Yet one of the biggest stumbling blocks to sustainability is the construction industry, which favours prefab building modules over ecological materials, Korjenic added.

Current regulations and norms are also hampering the inclusion of natural building materials.

As Austria’s only master thatchers, Van Hoorne and his father are in high demand, and they also farm their own reeds locally.

But even that is not easy because of low prices and droughts which stunt the reeds’ growth as the climate warms, he said.

He and four other remaining reed farmers in Austria also face crushing competition from China, which has an 80 percent share of the European market.

With his customers for now mostly in England and the Netherlands, “shipping a container from Shanghai to Rotterdam costs around $2,000 — just as much as a truck from Austria,” he said.

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PROPERTY

Why are young people in Austria so pessimistic about homeownership?

Most young people in Austria do not believe they can afford to buy their own home with their income. Here is why.

Why are young people in Austria so pessimistic about homeownership?

Only 39 percent of young professionals think they can afford their own home with their income, according to a new GPA trade union survey

Around 1000 Austrians aged 16 to 29 participated in the survey, which shows that the expectation of being able to buy property without inheritance or help decreases with age.

Austrians aged 25 to 29 are the most pessimistic

The survey shows that as life and work experience increase, the expectation of being able to buy a home from one’s salary decreases.

Younger Austrians up to 24 years old are more likely to believe they can achieve this (44 percent) compared to Austrians between 25 and 29 years old (30 percent).

The difference becomes even more significant between those still in education (59 percent) and those who are working (33 percent).

Expectations are consistent across both low- and high-income groups.

READ MORE: How can I move into affordable cooperative housing in Vienna?

Young women least satisfied with salary

More than a third of young Austrians find that they have a salary that is too low.

In the survey, 43 percent of women expressed not being satisfied with their earnings, compared to 36 percent of men.

The survey also shows that the participants prioritise choosing educational fields where it is easy to find a job after graduation (86 percent) and where they can experience good earning prospects (84 ).

High prices, rates and strict lending criteria

One of the biggest barriers to owning a home in Austria is the sky-high property prices. Over the years, property prices have increased, making it more difficult for people with an average income to afford a place of their own. 

Another factor making owning a home challenging is the increase in interest rates in recent years. As a result, both existing variable-rate loans and newly obtained fixed-rate loans have become more expensive.

Analysts expect the European Central Bank to cut interest rates by around 0.5 percent in the near future, but according to durchblicker’s calculations, this would initially only create a little relief for loan takers, where instead of around 60 percent, 55 percent of monthly household net income would be needed for debt repayment.

Difficulties obtaining a mortgage

Another issue preventing many from realising their dream to buy a home is the difficulty obtaining a mortgage.

Since July 2022, stricter rules have applied in Austria for the granting of property loans. Loan applicants must have a deposit worth at least 20 percent of the value of their property to be granted a loan.

This means that young professionals need to work for many years and earn a high income to have a chance of being accepted.

READ ALSO: Why buying property in Austria remains unaffordable for most

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