Housing costs for people living in Ireland last year were more than double the EU average, with the cost of rent increasing by 98% since 2010, a new report from Eurostat shows.
According to the 2024 edition of Housing in Europe, housing costs in Ireland, which include the cost of water, electricity, gas, and other fuels, were 101% above the EU average during 2023, above Luxembourg in second place at 86% higher than the average, and Denmark, which was 80% above.
The lowest costs were observed in Bulgaria, which was 61% below the EU average.
House prices across the EU increased by 48% between 2010 and 2023, with the highest increases observed in Estonia, up 209%, Hungary, up 191%, and Lithuania, up 154%. During the same period, rent prices increased by 22%, with Estonia once again recording the latest increase of 211%, followed by Lithuania, up 169%, and Ireland, up 98%.
As of last year, across the entire EU, 69% of the population owned their own home, while the remaining 31% lived in rented housing. Ireland is near the EU average on home-ownership compared to rental.
Germany was the only country where renting was more common than home-ownership, with 52% of the population being tenants.
Ireland had the highest proportion of people living in houses as opposed to apartments, at 90% compared to 10%. The next-highest was the Netherlands, where 79% live in houses. The highest percentages living in flats were observed in Spain at 66% and Latvia at 65%.
Ireland has one of the highest average numbers of people per household, at 2.7 — behind only Slovakia at 3.1 and Poland at 2.9.
Regarding affordability, on average EU households spent 19.7% of their disposable income last year on housing. In Ireland this was 17.1%.
“Looking at those with a disposable income of below 60% of the national median income — people who could be considered as at risk of poverty, the share of housing in disposable income was 38.2% on average in the EU,” Eurostat said.
“On the other hand, for those with a disposable income of above 60% of the median income, the share amounted to 16.2%.”