?Most Bermudians my age don?t believe they can ever buy a million dollar home.?

So says Charlie Souza, a 26-year-old barman, who says friends have vowed to go overseas because they are priced out of the Bermuda market.

?I say it myself sometimes,? he said. ?Sometimes, I say I will live in the south of France. But that?s the frustration.

?Before I used to think I could work hard for somebody and be able to own my own home. Now I think I will have to be a business man. You got to be earning over $200,000 a year to buy a house.

?If I am going to spend more than a million dollars on a house, and be on the hook for the next 20 years, I am not going buy a tenth of an acre and a cottage which is a 100 years old.?

The housing problem is partly a result of decades of inaction, said Mr. Souza.

?Government could have managed this much, much better,? he said. ?That?s going over a long period ? 30 years. They should build up.

?Hamilton is a great place for that, like the Atlantis building. It?s great for professionals working in the City. And they need initiatives for people not making enough money.?

Buying a piece of the Rock isn?t necessarily the route to security, argued Mr. Souza.

?I don?t want to invest the next 20-25 years of my life for something that is worth a million dollars now and then there is the possibility it will be absolutely nothing.

?That?s the big fear when it comes to putting my money down ? if we go Independent, the dollar goes down and the housing market bucks.?

Earlier this week realtor Buddy Rego told that many first-time buyers would do better to lower their sights and buy condos.

Mr. Souza rejected this but his friend and fellow MR Onions barman Javon Wade, 27, said that formula had worked for his family who had started with a condo in Duck?s Puddle and then sold it to make a down payment on a house in West Pembroke.

That home has more than doubled to $1.2 million in the nine years since they bought it.

Mr. Wade is one of four family members who chip in for the mortgage while rent from tenants also help.

?Luckily we had a backer who went in with us,? he said. ?If we didn?t have that we wouldn?t have been able to do it ten years ago.

?And to do it today would be twice as hard because we are not making twice as much money as we were.?

Also glad she got on the housing ladder is Karen Skinner, whose two-and-a-half bedroom house in Paget is now worth seven figures after she and photographer David Skinner bought it five years ago for just $420,000.

?We bought it just in the nick of time before prices escalated,? said the 44-year-old executive assistant and mother-of-two.

Managing the mortgage was hard for the first couple of years but after years of renting and being constantly on the move the family were glad to be in their own home.

Mrs. Skinner now views the mortgage as an investment rather than cash drain.

?Ultimately you are paying it back to yourself,? she said. ?You are buying more and more ownership.

?But it is so much harder for people now, I really feel for people struggling out there to get their own place.

?If we were doing it now, I guess we would have to settle for something in not such a nice area or one you would have to fix up.?