(23 November 2015) – In the EU, 59.3% of the population live in houses and 40% in flats. 70.1% of the population live in owner-occupied dwellings. The overcrowding rate stands at 17.1% and 11.4% of the EU population have to spend more than 40% of their disposable income for their accommodation.
In a majority of Member States, the largest part of the population were living in 2014 in houses, with the highest proportions being recorded in the United Kingdom (84.7%), Croatia (80.8%), Belgium (77.6%), the Netherlands (77.1%), Cyprus (72.7%) and Slovenia (70.3%). In contrast, flats were the main dwelling type, notably in Spain (66.5%), Latvia (65.1%), Lithuania (58.4%) and Greece (56.9%).
The highest shares of the population owning their dwelling were registered in Romania (with 96.1% of owners), Slovakia (90.3%) Lithuania (89.9%), Croatia (89.7%) and Hungary (89.1%), while less than two-thirds of the population owned their dwelling in Germany (52.5%) and Austria (57.2%), followed by Denmark (63.3%), the United Kingdom (64.8%) and France (65.1%).
In 2014, the housing cost overburden was by far the highest in Greece, where 40.7% of the population were living in a household where total housing costs represented more than 40% of total disposable household income.
Overall, with an average score of 7.5 on a scale from 0 to 10, satisfaction with accommodation was the second best rated domain by the EU population aged 16 and over, behind satisfaction with personal relationships.