The data combined the cost of actual rents paid with an estimate of the cost of housing owners would pay if they rented their home on the open market - known as “imputed rent”.
Housing in Poland, by contrast, has the lowest share of spending of any OECD country, with only 6%.
The largest expenditure item across all countries but one was imputed rentals for housing. Poland is the exception, where electricity, gas and other fuels was measured as the largest expenditure. Poland’s heavy dependency on fossil fuels led to some of the highest wholesale electricity prices in Europe following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The Foundation’s housing outlook used OECD data to compare housing statistics across national economies.
While international data on floor space per person is scarce, countries like France and Germany - both relatively similar comparable in terms of size, population and economic development - consume a similar amount of residential housing space, with 43m2 in France (in 2020) and 46m2 in Germany (in 2017).
The proportion of older, pre-war homes (built before 1946) also has a marked effect on the quality of housing. Homes built pre-war, for example, are not as well insulated and therefore more prone to damp.
Greece has the lowest share of pre-war housing stock of any European country - with only 8%, largely down to its radical housing solutions implemented after the war ended.
But soaring house prices and rents - largely down to increasing demand from foreign buyers and continued economic growth - and making it tougher for Greeks to move onto or up the property ladder. A recent poll by Euronews found the fight against rising prices was voters' biggest issue in the upcoming EU elections, with 68% of respondents calling it a priority.
Behind the UK, Belgium has the second largest proportion of pre-war housing, with Denmark following in close third.
The Foundation also charted the relationship between the overall prosperity of a nation, compared to the amount of housing services it consumes.
Poland’s housing consumption was highest, followed by Greece and the Czech Republic. Households in the UK, relative to the country’s overall prosperity, consume far less housing than households than all other OECD economies except Colombia - by far the poorest member of the group.
However the price of housing is highest in the UK, relative to the country’s overall price levels, followed by New Zealand, Australia and Ireland. Poland and Greece both rank well below the OECD average - with the low cost of housing partially explaining their high housing consumption.
In Europe, house prices have climbed the most in Turkey - with figures showing that Turkish house prices are 12 times higher than they were nine years ago in nominal terms. This puts a flat in Istanbul in close competition with the famously expensive Paris and London.
Among OECD member states, northern European countries such as Sweden and Finland have seen the smallest change, with more than 4% increases in nominal housing prices since 2015.
Turkey is followed closely by Hungary, where prices are 166% more than they were in 2015.
