Buying a home has become more difficult across much of the European Union over the past decade, according to new data from Eurostat. Between 2015 and 2025, house prices grew faster than household incomes in 17 of the 27 member states, pushing the EU-wide house price-to-income ratio up by 6.8%. In ten countries, however, the ratio fell, meaning homes became more affordable relative to earnings.
The figures come as the European Commission prepares to launch its European Affordable Housing Plan in December 2025, a response to a housing crisis that has become one of the bloc's most pressing social and economic issues. Across the EU, house prices rose by 62% in the ten years to the second quarter of 2025, far outstripping wage growth in many regions.
Portugal leads the affordability squeeze
Portugal recorded the steepest deterioration in affordability, with its house price-to-income ratio jumping by 60.8% between 2015 and 2025. The Netherlands followed with a 34.3% increase. Mike Langen, senior housing economist at ABN AMRO, attributes Portugal's surge to a combination of tourism and foreign investment. "The country experienced a touristic boom, and their golden visa program attracted foreign investors, so house prices grew partly because of foreign capital," he told Euronews Business. In the Netherlands, he points to a chronic housing shortage and strong investor demand.
Other countries with double-digit increases include Hungary (26.5%), Czechia (25.8%), Spain (24.5%), and Greece (22.5%). Ronan Lyons, associate professor of economics at Trinity College Dublin, notes that these markets share a common pattern: "strong demand in their main cities with supply that has struggled to keep up." Slovenia (18.2%), Ireland (14.4%), Austria (13.6%), Slovakia (11.2%), Luxembourg (10.6%), and Lithuania (10.1%) also saw significant rises.
Romania bucks the trend, but renters suffer
At the other end of the scale, Romania recorded the largest improvement, with its ratio falling by 42.8%. Finland (-25.2%), Bulgaria (-16.2%), Cyprus (-12%), and Italy (-11.9%) also saw notable declines. Langen explains that strong income growth in Bulgaria and Romania after their EU accession made homes cheaper relative to earnings. However, Lyons cautions that a falling ratio does not necessarily mean affordable housing. In Romania, 56% of market-rate renters spent more than 40% of their disposable income on housing in 2025, the highest share in the EU.
Among the EU's four largest economies, France saw a modest decline of under 6%, Italy fell by 11.9%, Germany rose by 1.6%, and Spain recorded the largest increase at 24.5%.
Long-term perspective: 2015 was a historic low
Eurostat also compares each country's 2025 ratio with its own average from 2000 to 2025. The EU-wide ratio was just 0.03% above its long-term average, but national variations are stark. Portugal's ratio was 37% above its long-term average, while Romania's was 53% below. Ireland's ratio was 14.4% higher than in 2015 but 1.7% below its long-term average, partly because that average includes the mid-2000s housing bubble, according to Lyons. Lithuania shows a similar pattern, with a ratio 10.1% above 2015 but 5.7% below its long-term average.
The choice of starting year matters. "The reference period (2015) showed a nearly historic low in price-to-income ratios," Langen notes. "This means we are comparing to one of the cheapest periods in the last 20 years." With 2005 as the base, the increase would be much smaller. Mortgage costs also play a crucial role, as few buyers pay in cash. The European Central Bank's deposit rate currently stands at 2.5%, compared with minus 0.3% at the end of 2015, making borrowing significantly more expensive.
Lyons stresses that these metrics only measure change, not current affordability. "Both measures are about change: change since 2015, or distance from a 25-year average. Neither tells us how affordable housing is today," he says. A falling ratio does not automatically make a market affordable, as the Romanian rental market demonstrates.
As the EU prepares to roll out its housing plan, the data underscores the uneven nature of the crisis. While some countries have seen relative improvements, the overall trend points to a growing divide between those who can afford to buy and those who cannot. For more on related economic pressures, see our coverage of EU household energy prices and Portugal's fuel price changes.
