EU housing costs kept climbing in late 2025

Housing prices and rents across the EU continued their upward climb in the third quarter of 2025, according to new data published by Eurostat on Friday (9 January) — deepening existing concerns about affordability across the bloc.

Compared to the same period in 2024, housing prices rose by 5.5 percent and rents by 3.1 percent. Even on a quarterly basis, prices kept climbing, with housing up 1.6 percent and rents 0.9 percent from the second quarter of 2025.

The rise in prices last year is part of a wider issue visible across almost all of the EU’s member states. Over the past decade, from 2015 to 2025, buying a house has become 63.6 percent more expensive, rents went up 21.1 percent.

Hungary recorded the sharpest surge, with housing prices more than tripling (275 percent), followed by Portugal (169 percent), Lithuania (162 percent) and Bulgaria (156 percent).

Finland was the only member state where prices declined (down two percent).

Rents also increased in all 27 member states during this period.

The highest jumps were seen in Hungary (107 percent), Lithuania (85 percent), Slovenia (76 percent), Poland (75 percent) and Ireland (74 percent).

In response to the escalating housing crisis, the European Parliament set up a special committee to address the issue while the commission appointed its first housing commissioner, Denmark's Dan Jørgensen.

In December the first-ever EU-wide housing plan was published.

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