Housing affordability: Approaches to measurement and key data insights – Background paper

Finding and/or affording a home is the biggest challenge facing many people in Europe right now. Housing affordability problems cast a long shadow, impacting a household’s budget, reducing its ability to save for emergencies and affecting people’s overall well-being. Despite its importance, however, there is considerable debate regarding how to define and measure housing affordability – especially as the housing cost overburden rate is currently on a downward trend, seemingly contradicting the widely held view that housing is becoming increasingly unaffordable. How, then, can housing affordability challenges best be captured across Member States, given the data currently available?