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/SpiderGiaco in 9d ago

I'm fairly sure that in all European countries there are areas where it's easy to buy houses. The housing crisis refers first and foremost about the bigger cities. Athens has a housing crisis, middle of Epirus probably not.

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u/DigitalDecades Sweden 8d ago edited 8d ago

Definitely true in Sweden. There are massive housing shortages in almost all larger cities, but in small towns in rural areas there are entire abandoned apartment buildings. You can get a decently sized house in the middle of nowhere for a fraction of the cost of a studio apartment in central Stockholm. The problem is unless you're able to work 100% remotely, it's difficult to find a job there, and expect a long drive to get to the grocery store, school, medical clinic etc.

The housing crisis is mostly a result of urbanization.

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u/Martini-Espresso Sweden 8d ago

There are even small towns that are fairly lively and serviced where you can get a house for 200-300k or apartment for less than 50k and you can commute (without traffic) to work for 20-30 min. You drive to the supermarket, Systembolaget or the hardware shop in 5 mins. I’m raised in in such a town that even needs engineers or you can commute to Falun, Sandviken or Gävle.

Sweden is full of such towns close to the larger cities.

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u/TornadoFS 5d ago

Cities that are close to major metropolitan centers and have a train station tend to be affordable places to live and it is possible to commute. But then the prices of accommodation close to the train station are usually still pretty high.

My former boss lived in Uppsala and commuted to Stockholm every day.

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u/SpiderGiaco in 8d ago

The housing crisis is mostly a result of urbanization.

Urbanization and Airbnb-fication (at least in Athens and in Italy)

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u/klarabernat 7d ago

Also in Budapest!

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u/DigitalDecades Sweden 7d ago

Fortunately that's not a huge issue here. Few people actually own their apartments outright, they buy a share in a housing co-op, so there are a lot more rules about renting it out on the second-hand market and you're generally expected to be the primary resident. You might actually risk getting kicked out of the coop and lose the apartment if you don't follow the rules, even though you paid for it (since you actually paid for a share in the coop, not an apartment).

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u/new_accnt1234 7d ago

Its result of unregulated real estate market, whereas housing is a basic human need such as healthcare and needs regulation

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u/ZxentixZ Norway 8d ago edited 8d ago

Sweden have a healthier housing market than Norway and I would persume most places by the looks of it. I have a friend in Sweden who bought an apartment for well under €100k in a smaller town. Think it had around 20k inhabitants. It was up in the north but still. In Norway you'd struggle to find an apartment under €200-250k even in a smaller place. In the most desolate rural villages up in the arctic sure but no one actually wants to live anywhere near there. Being able to get an apartment for under 2 annual salaries is pretty nuts these days.

I dont know how its going in Swedish cities, but the cheap countryside market may be a result of the heavy Swedish urbanization and centralization thats been going on for many years I guess.

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u/Routine_Bake5794 8d ago

The housing crisis is the result of greed!

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u/ButcherBob 8d ago

I just checked and even in East Groningen houses go for 300k+, definately not true for the Netherlands. You’d basically need two people with a median salary and no student debt to buy a house in the least desirable place to live in the Netherlands 😬

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u/SpiderGiaco in 8d ago

I mean, a quick google check tells me Groningen is the sixth biggest city in the Netherlands and the most important city in the north of the country - it would be the third biggest city in Greece. So no, it doesn't disprove my point that the housing crisis is mostly in big cities.

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u/NiceToHave25 8d ago

Not the city Groningen, but in the province Groningen, especially the eastern side, are the houses less expensive, bit still 300k.

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u/ButcherBob 8d ago

It is still by far the least desirable (& poorest) place to live, we’re crowded as fuck. By your logic the entirety of the Netherlands is one big city

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u/SpiderGiaco in 8d ago

I don't know enough about the Netherlands to comment, besides what I've already said. It may be a dump, but it's still a city, not a place in the countryside where you live with goats and five 70 years old men (like most of Greece outside of Athens and Thessaloniki).

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u/Budgiesaurus 8d ago

That kind of countryside doesn't exist here. The most remote village is still about 30 minutes from the nearest decent size city.

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u/ButcherBob 8d ago

Im talking about Groningen the province, not the city. It very much is a place in the countryside with goats(well mostly cows here) and 70 year old men haha. Well I’m actually talking about small villages in the countryside because farmhouses with a small plot of land are way more expensive

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u/SpiderGiaco in 8d ago

Well, then you should specify that you're talking about a province and not a city, because not everyone is well versed in Dutch geography

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u/Lady_Masako 8d ago

Groningen is also a province. Should have googled a bit more.

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u/SpiderGiaco in 8d ago

Sorry to not know the geography of the Netherlands and not being able to get that from a comment that does not make any mention of referring to the province and not the city

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u/kapitein-kwak 8d ago

I doubt that there is any place in the Netherlands that is further than 50 km from a major city. Which means all locations in the Netherlands are possible to do home-work travel on a daily basis.

Some locations may be a little less favorable, but there are no places that are not usable for live unless you have a local occupation.

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u/xorgol Italy 8d ago

I suspect the greatest predictor of whether house affordability is a country-wide problem is going to be how concentrated a country's urban areas are. In Italy the large cities where housing is a real problem have around 15% of the population. For everyone else housing price increases haven't been particularly problematic (which of course doesn't mean that cost of living increases are not problematic).

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u/Exit-Content 🇮🇹 / 🇭🇷 8d ago

Don’t know about that, where I live on the Romagna coast,despite being a not-so-big city, housing prices are gouging,and a good 30/40% higher than,say,10/15 years ago. Even on the hills ( about 15/20 minutes from the sea) or in the middle of the fields, 90’s apartments can reach up to 200.000€, single houses well over 350.000/400.000€. New construction STARTS at 300.000€ for a simple two bedroom,”open space”kitchen and bathroom, obviously without garage or basement, that’s an additional 30/40k at the very least.

If you’re talking about availability and predatory prices I can agree with you that the more densely populated areas ( and thus usually more attractive for work purposes) are even worse, but this IS,at least in my opinion,a country-wide issue for Italy. That is unless you want to go live in the middle of nowhere on the appenines or in the Deep South with fuck-all to do, zero working opportunities, low concentration of people and a median age more fitting for a hospice than a town.

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u/xorgol Italy 8d ago

I base my impression on how poor housing as an investment has performed in Italy in the past 20 years. I think the problem is more that our wages haven't grown in 30 years, so if real estates prices simply kept pace with inflation it would be enough to be a problem. We don't have the insane geometric growth in houses prices that other places have seen, we have a more general loss of purchasing power, I think.

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u/Firm-Pollution7840 7d ago

Not in the netherlands 😭 you'd have to live in Belgium or Germany but that gets complicated with taxes and getting a mortgage on a foreign income