Cyprus’s house price-to-income ratio stood at 91.61 points in 2025, 8.39 per cent below its long-term average, Eurostat said on Monday, while across the EU house prices have risen faster than incomes over the past decade.
The figure, where 100 represents the long-term average since 2000, was virtually unchanged from 91.63 in 2024 and 92.03 in 2023. It does not necessarily mean housing is affordable for households, as the index tracks the relationship between prices and incomes over time and not the actual cost of buying a home.
Cyprus over the decade
The ratio stood close to the long-term average at 99.71 points in 2016 and 99.36 in 2017. It then fell to 93.13 in 2018 and 92.30 in 2019, before rising to 95.38 in 2020. It dropped to 89.59 in 2021 and recovered slightly to 90.10 in 2022, and has changed little since reaching 92.03 in 2023.
EU picture
The EU ratio rose 6.8 per cent between 2015 and 2025, meaning property prices increased relative to household incomes. It rose in 17 countries and fell in the other ten.
Portugal recorded the largest increase, at 60.8 per cent, followed by the Netherlands at 34.3 per cent, Hungary at 26.5 per cent, Czechia at 25.8 per cent and Spain at 24.5 per cent. Romania saw the largest decrease, at 42.8 per cent, followed by Finland at 25.2 per cent and Bulgaria at 16.2 per cent.
Eurostat said the changes do not rank countries by the absolute cost of buying a home, but show how property prices have moved relative to household incomes.
Peaks in the EU
Eurostat identified two periods when the EU’s standardised index was well above its long-term average: 2007, at 7.9 per cent above, and 2022, at 7.4 per cent above. In 2014, it was 6.4 per cent below. After the 2022 peak, it fell in 2023 and 2024, and in 2025 stood just 0.03 per cent above the long-term average.
What it means for affordability
Eurostat said the ratio is one of the indicators used to assess housing market conditions and identify possible macroeconomic imbalances. It rises when house prices increase faster than incomes and falls when they rise more slowly.
Affordability also depends on the number of years of income needed to buy a property, the cost of mortgage financing and current housing costs as a share of disposable income. The figures alone are therefore not enough to establish whether buying a home has become easier or harder for households in Cyprus.
(information from the Cyprus News Agency)
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