Our reading of data from Eurostat's house price index. Spot an error? Tell us at hello@adatastory.com.
A home that cost €100,000 in early 2005 would be priced at €201,800 today, if it rose with the EU's house price index. Take out inflation and the rise is 21.4%. Twenty-one years of prices in 28 European countries, from Eurostat's quarterly index.
Eurostat's EU house price index (Greece publishes none, so it is built from the other 26, and only 12 of them go back to 2005) stood at 83.54 in the first quarter of 2005 and 168.56 in the second quarter of 2026: 2.02 times as much. It wasn't a steady climb. The index peaked at 104.6 in the second quarter of 2008, fell 7.4% to 96.8 by the first quarter of 2013, and only passed its 2008 peak again in the third quarter of 2016. Since early 2015 it has risen 71.5%.
The index follows the price of comparable homes over time. It says how much prices changed, not what a home costs, so it can't say where homes are dearest.
The index is set to 100 for each country's 2015 average, so its latest value reads as the change since then. In the second quarter of 2026 Hungary's stood at 389.6 (provisional): prices there were almost four times their 2015 level. Portugal (301.4), Lithuania (291.0) and Bulgaria (284.8) follow. In 15 of the 28 countries prices at least doubled.
At the other end are Italy (121.0), France (125.5) and Finland, at 97.5, the only country where homes cost less than in 2015.
Consumer prices in the EU rose 66.3% between the first quarter of 2005 and the second quarter of 2026. In today's money, 2005's €100,000 is €166,300, against the €201,800 the house price index gives. So in real terms, homes cost 21.4% more than in 2005.
Measured that way, prices fell 18.1% from the third quarter of 2007 to the end of 2013. They peaked at the end of 2021, were 9.4% lower by the end of 2023, and are still 4.6% below that peak.
Dividing each country's index by its own consumer prices gives a real index. From the first quarter of 2010, the first that 27 of the countries can be compared from, to the second quarter of 2026, real prices fell 26.9% in Romania, 26.7% in Italy, 24.3% in Finland and 5.0% in France. In Italy the index rose just 3.6% while consumer prices rose 41.2%.
At the other end, real prices about doubled in Hungary (+104.0%, on figures Eurostat marks provisional) and nearly doubled in Portugal (+98.2%), Lithuania (+96.6%) and Estonia (+94.2%). Across the EU as a whole, the real rise was 14.0%.