Big Differences in European Mortgage Markets

According to data from Eurostat and the Housing Finance Information Network (HOFINET), the composition of housing markets and mortgage loans can vary greatly within European countries. In 2017, 70 percent of the EU-28 population lived in an owner-occupied house. Homeowners with a mortgage or housing loan accounted for 24.7 percent of the population, and the remaining 45.3 percent were owner-occupants without a mortgage.

Especially in the eastern and southern EU member states, the share of the population with a housing loan was below the EU-28 average. In Romania, Bulgaria and Croatia, less than ten percent of the population lived in an owner-occupied house with an outstanding mortgage loan whereas this percentage reached 11.1 and 13.6 percent in Poland and Italy respectively. This is different in northern member states, such as the Netherlands and Sweden. The Netherlands had the most property owners with outstanding mortgages at 60.7 percent whilst Romania had the least at around one percent.