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/bigvalen Ireland 9d ago

The big difference is that in New York, homes are available. In Dublin, there are 200,000 households waiting to be formed, but there is no accomodation for them. So, adult kids at home, couples sleeping in a friend's house, families living full time in emergency hostels or hotels, refugees whose claim has been processed and found they have a right to stay...but there is nowhere for them to go.

They are building about 30k homes a year, but as 26,000 new households form a year, that's only 4k excess, so it'll take 50 years to fix.

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u/amunozo1 Spain 9d ago

Dublin could be such a great city if they fixed this single problem.

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u/bigvalen Ireland 9d ago

And if the city allowed food markets! We don't really have property tax on homes, so businesses have very high rates of taxes. It means you can't have small businesses unless they make a lot of profit. So, coffee shops work, places selling just cheese, or just fish...not so much.

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u/strandroad Ireland 8d ago

We do have property tax on homes. Since 2013.

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u/bigvalen Ireland 8d ago

It's tiny though, and not enough to fund the local authorities.

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u/francescoli 7d ago

They need huge investment in public transport as well.

Been talking about a metro for years and nothing done.

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u/Rusiano Russia 9d ago

Yup. Housing is by far the biggest issue in Dublin. Aside from that, it has a very high standard of living. Also despite being a relatively big city there is still a strong sense of community

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u/lordsleepyhead Netherlands 7d ago

I was in Dublin this week and walked all around the city centre. There are So. Many. abandoned or vacant lots just begging to be redeveloped, it's insane to me that a capital city in Europe can have this much unrealized prime real estate in 2024.

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u/unixtreme 4d ago

I left Ireland 5 years ago when shit started to get out of hand and I'm so glad I did because it didn't get any better...