REPORT on the housing crisis in the European Union with the aim of proposing solutions for decent, sustainable and affordable housing

This European Parliament resource, authored by Borja Giménez Larraz, is a report and draft European Parliament resolution on the housing crisis in the European Union, focused on proposing solutions for decent, sustainable and affordable housing.

The text frames housing as a foundation for households and communities and describes affordability as the core challenge across Europe. It reports that, in the EU from 2010 to the second quarter of 2025, rents increased by 28.8% and house prices by 60.5%. It also highlights that, over an eight-year period, house prices rose by an average of 48% and rents by 18%, with many households facing housing expenses that can reach more than 40% of monthly income.

The report underlines that unaffordability affects low-income and middle-income households and is particularly acute for young people. It cites an average age of 26.3 in 2023 for young adults leaving the parental home in the EU, and notes that in some Member States nearly 70% of people aged 18–34 continued living with their parents. It also links housing stress to poverty risks and social exclusion, and describes homelessness as a persistent emergency, citing around 1.3 million people homeless on any given night in the EU, including almost 400,000 children.

Housing policy is described as primarily a Member State competence, but the resource argues that EU legislation and funding shape national markets and can enable Member States, regions and municipalities. It stresses that housing conditions and affordability realities vary across territories, calling for solutions that avoid a “one-size-fits-all” approach and that involve local and regional authorities in identifying needs, planning land use, setting building rules, and managing permitting.

A key diagnosis is limited housing supply, driven by underinvestment, rising costs (including energy and utilities), and lengthy planning and permitting procedures. The text highlights declines in construction indicators, including that building permits fell by 14.6% for floor area and by 19.6% for the number of dwellings in 2023, and notes a drop in approved permits from 1.99 million housing units in 2021 to 1.54 million in 2024. It also references land-use pressures, citing net land take of about 450 km² per year in functional urban areas (2012–2018) and an additional 4,900 km² increase in residential and service land between 2018 and 2022.

The report connects the housing crisis to sustainability and building performance requirements. It notes that 10.6% of EU citizens reported being unable to adequately heat their homes in 2023, and that buildings account for 40% of final energy consumption in the EU. It states that 75% of the EU building stock has a poor energy performance rating, and links renovation to lower energy bills, improved health and wellbeing, and long-term cost reductions. It references EU frameworks such as the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive and the Renovation Wave, while noting that compliance requirements can influence construction and renovation costs.

The resource supports an ambitious European Affordable Housing Plan, including better use of EU funds, stronger data collection, and measures to mobilise both public and private investment. It references the scale of the investment need by citing an estimated affordable-housing investment gap of EUR 270 billion per year. It also points to EU instruments and actors such as cohesion policy funding and the European Investment Bank Group’s Action Plan for Affordable and Sustainable Housing, and calls for clearer access to financing and simplified, transparent procedures to accelerate delivery of affordable and sustainable homes.