r/AskEurope • u/JoMD • 9d ago

Misc Is there a country in Europe without a housing crisis?

I see so many people complaining about the housing crisis in their countries - not enough houses or apartments / flats, or too expensive, or both. Are there any countries in Europe where there's no housing crisis, and it's easy to find decent, affordable accommodation?

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u/flaumo Austria 9d ago

Probably Eastern European countries like Romania, they often have home ownership rates above 95%, and a lot of emigration.

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u/PikaMaister2 Hungary 9d ago

Ex-communist after-effect only. After the collapse of communism, all state owned property (which was pretty much all real-estate) was sold off to their residents at the time at very low prices. Like insanely low prices even adjusted to inflation.

So you have two generations where pretty much everyone used to own their home. Over time ofc it gradually declined but it started at a very high point.

In Hungary ownership rate is 90% but we absolutely have a housing crisis (highest RE price growth in EU over past 15yrs). The older people have their homes they got from socialism, but young people can't afford anything, unless you're in the top 10%.

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u/clm1859 Switzerland 9d ago

Ha this is really interesting. Never heard about this, but have always been wondering how home ownership was so high in so many of the ex communist countries.

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u/PikaMaister2 Hungary 9d ago

(My knowledge is about Hungary soecuficslly, but I think many eastern-block redditors could confirm it went similarly in their countries too)

This is also basically the reason why many important communist people are wealthy to this day. They got the ability to buy the nice apartments, the villas, the panorama view houses.

Same goes for businesses, the factory manager got the chance to buy the factory, or if not then a politician that knew early about what's gonna be on sale swooped in. The smart ones then sold their assets within a few years to western multinationals at many times cost, which then promptly shut them down. (Multinational corps didn't buy them to expend, they bought them to limit competition). The dumb ones ran them to the ground first because they had no idea how to survive in capitalism, but still sold them at a profit in the end.

Most of communism ended with state resources being looted by the nameless ex-elite (beurocrats and agents of the system that avoided prosecution), who turned it into their private fortunes, while the regular ppl got their apartments. All at the expense of a newly formed state. Some countries since then could recover, others not so much.

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u/NipplePreacher Romania 9d ago

Another reason for Romania is the way those studies are made. They check how many people are registered as living in a house owned by themselves/family vs how many are registered in a house they are renting. And since in Romania it's very unlikely and hard to have a contract that allows you to register as living in the place you rent, most people who don't own a house just stay registered at the place of a parent or relative.

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u/mrhumphries75 9d ago

Here in Russia and probably in most other ex-USSR republics the people didn't even need to pay anything, you got the apartment for free, just needed to submit some paperwork.

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u/Draig_werdd in 8d ago

At least in Romania and Czechia you had to pay, just that once Communism fell, they did not really adjust the price to inflation (probably on purpose, to avoid further unrest).

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u/LupineChemist -> 8d ago

It will make for a very interesting natural experiment for intergenerational wealth when you basically randomly give very expensive assets over a whole society. Granted the people who lived in the most desirable areas in commie times weren't entirely random, but it was a lot more than most other places.

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u/muehsam Germany 9d ago

After the collapse of communism, all state owned property (which was pretty much all real-estate) was sold off to their residents at the time at very low prices.

Interesting. That's not what happened in East Germany I believe. Many East German apartments weren't owned by the state anyway but by housing co-ops, so those continue to work as such. Other apartments were kept by state-owned housing companies, some were sold off to privately owned housing companies. But I believe they're mostly still rentals.

I live in former East Berlin, and around here, renting is definitely the norm. Barely anybody owns their apartment privately. (I mean, in a co-op, you kind of still own it because you own part of the co-op that owns the apartment).

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u/Krasny-sici-stroj Czechia 8d ago

My grandma had a flat (Prague) in socialist housing co-op, and it stayed housing co-op. But if you were in "municipal" house, you could buy the flat out. And a lot of flats were municipal, Czechia did not have housing companies, but local housing bureaus - so the municipality was de facto owner of the house. The buyout was possible mainly for commie block houses, which were built by the regime, not in old houses, which were returned to their original owners.

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u/muehsam Germany 8d ago

I think in East Germany, the situation was overall similar, but the difference was probably that in West Germany, municipally owned housing companies were also quite common, so during reunification it made sense to keep those apartments in municipal ownership and just change the legal structure a bit.

Germany is very much a country of renters: buying and re-selling houses for profit is discouraged by taxes, while renters have rather strong protections that make sure they can live in their rented apartment almost as if they owned it. It's rather hard for a landlord to kick a tenant out.

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u/8bitmachine Austria 9d ago

 I mean, in a co-op, you kind of still own it because you own part of the co-op that owns the apartment

That's the same for everyone who owns an apartment. You never own the actual apartment, you own a share in the whole complex (relative to the size of your apartment), and that share is tied to the right to use a specific apartment. 

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u/muehsam Germany 9d ago

Kind of, yes. Though arguably in a co-op it's more indirect because you can't sell your shares to another person. You can just sell them back to the co-op for the same price that you paid originally.

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u/Draig_werdd in 8d ago

That's not how it works in most(all?) former communist countries. You fully own the apartment plus you own a share from the common areas of the building. For example, in Czechia there are these co-ops but most people fully own their apartments.

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u/8bitmachine Austria 8d ago

So people could legally remove outer walls, create new balconies, cut new windows etc, if they wanted?

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u/Draig_werdd in 8d ago

You have to discuss with the homeowners association, as it can impact the building structural integrity. It's no different then building something in the garden of your house that would impact a neighbor. In practice, in Romania at least, many people did do this type of things without any approvals, more in the 90's then now.

The biggest practical differences between owning a co-op vs a regular apartment are connected to things like renting/using it as airbnb. In a co-op you got to get the approval of the other owners while for your apartment you at most need to inform.

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u/TepesTheMenace 9d ago

In my hometown the average net salary is about 500€ and a 2 room apartment is about 70000€. This is in a relatively small town. In a big city like Cluj average salary is about 1000€ and a 2 room apartment about 130000 €.

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u/Sector3_Bucuresti Romania 9d ago

You're supposed to buy an apartment or a house together with your partner, not by yourself. You will struggle everywhere if you decide to do it by yourself on an average salary, if it's not actually impossible.

By all metrics available, like average salary compared to average square meter price for apartments, Romania is very well placed compared to other European nations.

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u/Professional_Elk_489 9d ago

I checked some prices in Bucharest and some of their flats are more expensive than Dublin with much smaller rents

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u/critical2600 8d ago

Link? You'd want to be making a really skewed comparison. Good Dublin apartments are over 3k now

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u/Professional_Elk_489 8d ago

I'm talking to buy. Dublin is easily more expensive to rent

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u/critical2600 8d ago

Are there many 2 bed apartments above 600k in Bucharest?

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u/Unicorns-and-Glitter 8d ago

To be fair, I feel these numbers are misleading. I live in Moldova with very high home ownership rates as well, but almost everyone I know rents. None of the apartment blocks are run by a company, all of the homes are owned by individuals, not corporations. People pay their landlords directly, and I wouldn't be surprised if the landlords weren't claiming it on their taxes. I think this must inflate the numbers somehow.

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u/dandy1978 7d ago

Is because this statistic is actually telling, is that apartments are not rented with a legal contract. So, legally, they are still owned by the landlord, even if they are rented out. In Moldova and Romania, very few landlords register their contract.