How many months of salary do you need to buy a house in Europe?

Those living in Denmark need the shortest time to save up for a house in Europe, according to a recent report by BestBrokers.com. They studied house prices, average net monthly income, inflation and "real" mortgage interest rates, which are the mortgage rates adjusted with inflation, across 62 countries in the world.

"Since prices and income vary significantly from one country to the next, the team at BestBrokers decided to examine the property market through how many months of salary it takes to buy a home in various European countries," read their report, which did not count spending on food, accommodation, childcare or anything else, making their count theoretical.

According to their findings, the average price of a 100-square metre property is the equivalent of 114 net salaries in Denmark, ranking the Northern country as the most affordable country in Europe to buy a home.

For everything else, Denmark ranked as the most expensive country in the EU in 2023 (prices for goods and services were 43% above the EU average, according to Eurostat) with the annual average earnings ranking as the seventh highest in Europe.

According to this report, Ireland and Sweden are the second and third most affordable countries in Europe, with 123 and 129 net wages respectively, being sufficient to buy a 100-sq-metre home. That is equivalent to roughly 10 years of annual salaries.

The bottom rankings in Europe go for the Czech Republic and Slovakia. In the latter, the average 100-square-metre home costs 297 times the average salary, which could be earned during almost 25 years. If someone can save half of their net wage, they will still be looking at 50 years spent vigorously saving to own a house for a family.

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