15/01/2026 12:29:00

Clarification on the fact-check article on the Times of Malta portal of 15 January 2026

Reference is made to an online article on the Times of Malta portal of Thursday 15 January 2026 entitled "Fact-Check: Do 90% of under-35s own their own homes?".

According to this article the claim made by the Prime Minister is based on an article penned by Alexander Demarco, then Deputy Governor (now Governor), in the local media in late 2025. In that article, the then Deputy Governor clearly referred to data being based on the Central Bank's Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS), which is also acknowledged in the Times of Malta article referred to above. The HFCS is a survey that deals exclusively with households and not individuals, and therefore any reference to results of this study can automatically only refer to households. 

Therefore, when the then Deputy Governor quoted results from the HFCS, it was obvious he was referring to households of that age group. The inference made in the Times of Malta article that the then Deputy Governor was referring to individuals is entirely a misinterpretation, factually incorrect, and misleading to the readers of the Times of Malta article.

The article was also incorrect in that it selectively quoted a spokesperson of the Bank. It then implied that the Bank's reply was confusing and claimed that the Bank's HFCS does not include information on persons aged under 35 who live with their parents or others. Such individuals aged under 35 do in fact appear in the survey, forming part of other households in an age cohort higher than 34 years of age.

The HFCS data shows that for Maltese households of all ages there have been consistent increases in the rate of home ownership since the start of such survey in 2010, with that for Maltese households in the 18-34 age group, increasing from 78% in 2010 to 91% in 2023. The share of total Maltese households that are aged under 35 increased from 8.7% to 12.2% during this period.

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