Housing costs have soared in recent years in Europe, for both owners and renters. Their quality has not always followed the same path. How does France rank compared to its neighbors?
© Farhan Azam/Unsplash
– The Abbé Pierre Foundation and Feantsa publish the 9th edition of their study on poor housing in Europe.
Real estate prices are falling, you rejoice, almost determined to take the plunge into home ownership or rental investment. Don’t get carried away, you won’t get the deal of the century. Certainly, the prices of old housing fell by almost 4% in France in the first half of 2024, over a year, according to the National Real Estate Federation. But they had risen very high in recent years, in France as in the rest of the European Union (EU). According to the 9th edition of the study on the poor housing According to the Abbé Pierre Foundation (FAP) and the European Federation of National Organisations Working with the Homeless (Feantsa), published on Thursday 19 September, housing prices have jumped by almost 50% in the EU between 2015 and 2023. The year 2015 corresponds to the start of the period of very low credit rates which saw them melt away less than 1% in 2021.
The rise in house prices took a break last year, with a very slight decline of -0.3% compared to 2022. The real estate crisis following the rapid rise in credit rates is the main cause. But “this lull is very relative compared to their sharp rise of +16.6% between 2020 and 2023”in the wake of the post-health crisis economic recovery, underline the FAP and Feantsa. With the exception of Finland, which was then in the midst of a recessionall EU member states have seen property prices soar during this period, as you can see in the infographic below. France is doing rather well, with prices increasing by “only” 12.6%, while they have skyrocketed by more than 50% in Hungary and Lithuania.
France is a bad student on the unsanitary housing front
Tenants are not in a better position. Rents have increased by almost 15% in the European Union between 2015 and 2023, and by more than 6% over the last three years. An increase observed in each of the 27 EU Member States, as you can see in this other infographic, below. And particularly in Lithuania (+30%), Poland (+32.3%) and Slovenia (+38.5%). It must be said that housing needs are exploding in all European countries, due to the phenomenon of decohabitation linked to separations, the aging of the population, with a majority of people wishing to spend their old age at home and not in a nursing home, without forgetting the scarcity of land available for the construction of housing, in order to preserve the environment.
Are Europeans better housed? No, considering the proportion of people occupying overcrowded housing and/or showing signs ofunsanitary conditions. In 2023, more than one in six Europeans lived in overcrowded housing. This proportion exceeds 30% in six Member States, namely Romania, Slovakia, Latvia, Bulgaria, Poland and Croatia. In France, it is just under 10%. However, France is lagging behind in terms of housing healthiness, defined according to the humidity level and the presence of infiltration or mould. While 15.5% of EU residents live in unsanitary housing, this proportion rises to 21% in France. It also exceeds the 20% mark in Spain, Portugal and Cyprus. A boulevard for supporters of large-scale energy renovation work.
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