House prices across the EU rose faster than household incomes over the past decade, with the bloc’s house price-to-income ratio 6.8% higher in 2025 than in 2015.
The house price-to-income ratio compares changes in house prices with changes in per capita household income against a base year, and it rises when house prices increase faster than incomes, Eurostat explained in a release on Monday.
National trends differed widely, with the ratio rising in 17 EU countries and falling in 10 over the period, it informed.
Portugal recorded the largest increase between 2015 and 2025, up 60.8%, followed by the Netherlands (+34.3%), Hungary (+26.5%), Czechia (+25.8%) and Spain (+24.5%).
Romania saw the biggest fall over the same period, down 42.8%, followed by Finland (-25.2%) and Bulgaria (-16.2%).
Eurostat said these changes track how prices moved relative to incomes over time and do not rank countries by how expensive homes are compared with incomes in absolute terms.
Two peaks since 2000 in an alternative measure
A separate measure — the standardised house price-to-income ratio — shows whether the ratio is above or below its long-term average since 2000, Eurostat said.
That indicator shows two peaks: in 2007, when the ratio was 7.9% above its long-term average, and in 2022, when it was 7.4% above.
The ratio then dropped to 6.4% below its long-term average in 2014, before rising again, and after falling in 2023 and 2024 it edged back above the long-term average in 2025 by 0.03%.
Eurostat said the standardised ratio is used as an auxiliary indicator in the EU’s Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure scoreboard, which tracks risks building up in national economies.
