Buying or renting, housing costs keep soaring across the EU

Brussels – Housing is increasingly a matter for the wealthy. According to Eurostat, the European Union’s statistical office, in the second quarter of 2026 house prices in the EU rose by 4.7 per cent, while rents rose by 3 per cent from the second quarter of 2025. Compared with the first three months of 2026, property prices rose by 1.2 per cent, while rents rose by 0.7 per cent. Between 2025 and the second quarter of 2026, property values rose by 4.1 per cent and rents by 2.6 per cent.

Comparing the second quarter of 2026 with the annual average for 2025, in 18 Member States – where data was available – property prices rose more rapidly than rents. The highest increases in property prices were recorded in Bulgaria (+14.3 per cent), Portugal (+14.2 per cent) and Lithuania (+12.8 per cent). Conversely, Finland (-1.5 per cent) and France (-1.4 per cent) were the only countries to see falls. Over the same period, rents rose in all Member States. The sharpest increases were recorded in Romania (+41.2 per cent), Croatia (+22.1 per cent) and Slovenia (+10.2 per cent), while the most modest increases were in Estonia and Finland (both +0.1 per cent) and in Luxembourg (+1.2 per cent). In Italy, property prices rose 4 per cent between the second four‑month period of 2025 and the same period in 2026.

Eurostat points out that between 2010 and the second quarter of 2011, house prices and rents in the EU followed a similar trend before diverging. While rents rose steadily, house prices followed a more varied trend. In particular, there was a significant increase between the first quarter of 2015 and the third quarter of 2022, followed by a slight decline and a period of stabilisation, then a rise from 2024 onwards.