In Data: How Europe's housing problem is fraying the social fabric

• EU leaders to discuss housing crisis on Oct. 23
• Affordable housing demand outstrips supply
• Social housing shortage worsens, waiting lists grow 

BRUSSELS - When European leaders meet in Brussels on Thursday, they will have a full agenda, not least Russia's war in Ukraine, but the fact that they have carved out time to talk about housing is significant and highlights a simmering crisis.

From Barcelona to Berlin, European cities are grappling with a housing crunch, with rents up by 15% in the last 15 years, and house prices up by more than 50% in the last decade.

"This is more than a housing crisis, this is a social crisis. It tears at Europe's social fabric," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told EU lawmakers in her annual address in September.

In a bid to address shortages and popular anger, the Commission appointed its first housing commissioner, Danish lawmaker Dan Jørgensen in December. He is expected to unveil a new affordable housing plan at the end of this year.

Analysts say the shortage of affordable housing is fuelling unrest, fusing with other hot-button issues in protests against over tourism and anti-migrant riots that erupted in cities from Spain and Portugal to Britain this year.

In elections in Germany and the Netherlands this year, centrist parties have faced criticism from voters over unmet promises on housing, while hard-right parties have blamed housing shortages on migration.

Economists and housing experts say the lack of affordable housing leaves low-income families, young people and migrants priced out of the market, weakening economic growth and affecting social cohesion.

The European Federation of National Associations Working With the Homeless said there was also a worrying rise in people experiencing homelessness, which can leave long-term scars. It also said many of those facing housing difficulties were often unemployed.

Over the past decade, demand has massively outstripped supply of homes, driving up prices that have risen by 53% on average across the European Union from 2015 to 2024. Hungary, Lithuania and Portugal have seen the steepest increases.

The biggest rises in rents were in Estonia, Lithuania, Hungary and Ireland according to European Parliament research, which in part blamed an increase in short-term rentals, with platforms like AirBnB taking homes off the market.

Rising rents and house prices mean one-in-10 Europeans spend 40% or more of their disposable income on housing. This is the threshold for a household to be considered overburdened by rent payments, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

The problem is starkest in Greece, where more than a quarter of Greeks living in cities had housing costs accounting for more than 40% of their disposable income.

Despite demand rising sharply, investment in new housing slumped following the global financial crisis in 2008 and the pandemic dealt a further blow as supply chain shocks saw construction costs rise by 26% in the three-and-a-half years to 2023, according to Eurostat, the EU's statistical office.

Adding to this pressure is a lack of social housing, the supply of which has shrunk since 2010 due to rising construction costs and the selling off of existing stock.

In France, the largest producer of social housing stock in the EU, the number of households applying for social housing has risen over the past decade even as the number of available units shrank.

In 2025, 2.8 million applications were pending, a record high, according to the Social Union for Housing, (USH), an organisation representing the French social housing sector.

According to a USH study, 518,000 homes need to be supplied each year until 2040 to satisfy demand, and 198,000 of these should be social housing.

European building developers say policy makers should cut red tape and offer tax breaks for companies building affordable homes to address the shortage of social housing.

Housing organisations say long-term investment and a massive expansion of social housing should also be priorities. In some popular tourist destinations, local authorities have sought to clamp down on short-term rentals to address shortages.

(Reporting by Joanna Gill; Editing by Jon Hemming).