Affordability Analysis: How Many Months of Salary Do You Need to Buy an Apartment in Europe?
Jure Taraš
10/31/2025
The issue of housing affordability has become an increasingly relevant topic in the context of economic and demographic changes that negatively affect people’s ability to secure housing. On one hand, rising square meter prices and stricter lending conditions make it particularly difficult to purchase a first property.
This study covered 25 European countries and examined theoretical affordability - that is, it aimed to determine how many years, or monthly net salaries, would be needed to buy a 70-square-meter apartment in different European countries. The analysis used 2024 data from Deloitte, Eurostat, and Numbeo, focusing on the average net salary and the average price per square meter of new residential construction at the national level.
The results of the study showed that in 2024, purchasing a 70-square-meter apartment in Europe required between 50 and 200 monthly net salaries. The fastest path to homeownership was in Denmark, where buying such an apartment would cost the equivalent of 57 monthly net salaries.
At the opposite end of the spectrum is Portugal, where more than 200 monthly net salaries are needed - placing the country at the very top of the list. This finding aligns with the fact that, in June this year, the European Commission warned the Portuguese government that the measures implemented so far have not been effective in addressing the housing crisis.
Regional differences are also noticeable. In addition to Portugal, housing is less affordable in the Baltic states, as well as in Southeast and Central European countries (the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary), where purchasing an apartment requires between 120 and 200 monthly net salaries.
When the same data on monthly net salaries is converted into annual salaries, or years, purchasing an apartment in Portugal would require 17.2 years of saving an entire salary, in the Czech Republic 16.6 years, and in Slovakia 15.5 years. As mentioned earlier, saving would take the shortest time in Denmark, just under five years (4.8) when expressed in years.
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It is important to emphasize that the data used are based on average salaries and average prices per square meter of new construction. It is important to keep in mind that prices can vary greatly depending on specific factors, such as geographic location, features of the micro-location, apartment size, and other characteristics. This study provides an approximate insight into apartment affordability in various countries and allows for comparisons across different regions of Europe.
The data on prices per square meter were collected from the 12th and 13th editions of Deloitte’s publication Overview of European Residential Markets, while data on annual net salaries for 2024 were obtained from Eurostat’s database (DOI: 10.2908/earn_nt_net). Missing data were supplemented using information from the online platform Numbeo, where the arithmetic mean between city-center and out-of-center apartment prices per square meter was used.
*Reproduction is permitted with proper source attribution.
