Austria is the most expensive country in Europe for housing, with an average price of €4,925 per m2, followed by Germany (€4,800/m2), France (€4,639/m2), and Norway (€4,204/m2).
On the opposite end, Bosnia and Herzegovina is the cheapest with €123.7/m2, ahead of Greece (€1330/m2) and Romania (€1266/m2).
The data comes from the Deloitte Property Index 2023 study, which analyzed the evolution of the residential real estate market in 27 countries and 76 cities in 2022.
Most of the countries saw increases in average prices for new dwellings, with Lithuania registering the highest growth (+31.9%), while price drops were noted only in the UK (-18.8%), Denmark (-9.7%), and France (-0.2%).
Meanwhile, Paris tops the ranking of the European cities with the most expensive housing, with an average price of €14,622/m2 for a new apartment. Munich comes second with €11,400/m2, followed by London in third with €9,163/m2.
Copenhagen was the only capital city to record a decrease in transaction prices (10.7%) for new dwellings between 2021 and 2022.
The highest annual growth rates in average transaction prices were recorded in the Slovenian city of Maribor (+38.2%).
The largest gap over the past year was observed in France, where the price level in Paris was 315.2% of the national average. Lisbon is another city where prices were more than three times higher than the national average, at 304.1%.
Belgium is the most affordable country for the purchase of a new 70 m2 home, where an average citizen needs 4.3 annual gross salaries, followed by Norway (4.7), Denmark (5), Slovenia (5.6), and Italy (6.2).
Slovakia is the least affordable among the analyzed European countries for home ownership, with 14.1 gross annual salaries needed to buy a new home, followed by the Czech Republic (13.3 gross annual salaries).
When it comes to the rental market, Dublin is the most expensive European city, with a monthly price level of €32.8/m2, followed by Paris (€28.5/m2) and Oslo (€28.0/m2).
At the other end of the scale, Bulgaria repeatedly recorded the lowest average rental prices, with those living in Burgas expected to pay on average €3.1/m2, in Sofia around €4.6/m2, and in Varna around €4.7/m2.
The highest annual change in the prices of rented dwellings was recorded in all surveyed Slovenian cities - Maribor (+66.5%), Kranj (+40.8%), and Ljubljana (+37.7%).
