Housing Cost Overburden in Europe

Across Europe, housing prices have risen by 60% on average since 2015, and according to Eurostat, 1 in 10 Europeans are unable to pay their rent on time. Coupled with rising energy and grocery prices, housing affordability has become an acute issue in most major cities. Yet the picture is highly uneven across countries and households.

As of 2024, the share of people spending more than 40% of their disposable income on housing ranges from just 2.4% in Cyprus to 28.9% in Greece, with an EU-27 average of 8.2%. Behind this average lies a wide divergence in lived reality across member states, socioeconomic groups, and levels of population density. Low-income and single-adult households, in particular, are far more likely to find housing consuming a disproportionate share of their income.