Declining Homeownership Among Young Europeans

OECD analysts attribute the trend to several inter-linked factors. Rising interest rates since 2021 have lifted borrowing costs, while house-price growth has outpaced wage growth, limiting the ability of first-time buyers to save deposits. Slower wage growth and higher tertiary-education enrolment have delayed labour-market entry, further reducing affordability. In the United Kingdom, Jonathan Cribb, deputy director at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, notes that “the most important barrier is how high house prices are compared to incomes for generations that have reached adulthood since the early 2000s.”

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The OECD Employment Outlook 2025 report finds that in roughly two-thirds of European nations, homeownership among 30-year-olds has declined since the mid-1990s. Ireland’s rate fell from 81 % to 53 %; Greece dropped from 78 % to 58 %; the United Kingdom from 74 % to 56 %; and Spain from 77 % to 60 %. Denmark, Austria, Luxembourg, Germany and Switzerland each saw double-digit declines of 9–13 percentage points. By contrast, post-socialist states have recorded gains: Slovakia rose from 38 % to 88 %, Czechia from 36 % to 76 %, and Poland from 57 % to 77 %. In the Netherlands, Cody Hochstenbach of the University of Amsterdam points to a fall from 50 % in 2002 to 44 % in 2024 among 25-34-year-olds, despite earlier periods of rapid expansion driven by pro-ownership policies.

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OECD experts told Euronews Business that tighter mortgage-credit access and the mismatch between house prices and incomes are “interconnected reasons” behind the decline. They also highlighted that the collapse of credit expansion after the 2008 financial crisis, reduced job stability, stricter lending criteria, and slower housing construction have compounded the problem in several markets.

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• “The most important barrier is how high house prices are compared to incomes for generations that have reached adulthood since the early 2000s,” — Jonathan Cribb, deputy director at the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) — Jonathan Cribb, deputy director at the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS)

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