In the most difficult position among the European Union Member States regarding how accessible the housingGreece is located, as a study by the Bank of Greece shows (BCT).
In Greece, almost 1/3 of households in urban areas are recorded to spend more than 40% of its available income to cover housing costs, including utility services, rents, housing loan payments and budget fees, the BoG reports.
In conditions of rise in real estate prices and energy costs and high borrowing costs, housing costs are gradually increasing, making housing even less accessible to domestic households. At the same time, public spending on housing, as a percentage of GDP, is for 2022 of the lowest among Member States.
The combination of these circumstances highlights the importance of the issue of housing accessibility, as increased household expenses for housing have immediate social and economic influences. On the one hand, Greek households are called upon to adapt their consumer standards, as housing demand is generally inelastic. On the other hand, the accumulation of wealth through savings is difficult, which has a direct effect on investment in the real economy and the financial system.
The BoG’s study uses stratified data from two waves of economics and consumption of households (Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCs) for 2018 and 2021 and manufactures a housing integration index, which is defined as the ratio of housing costs. but also depending on the degree of urbanity.
The evolution of the index suggests that housing accessibility decreases between 2018 and 2021, but also highlights the particular heterogeneity that exists between regions, as the issue is more pronounced in urban areas and especially for renting households. One main difference is the structure of households per rental status (privately owned or leased home), as tenants are more in urban areas than in semi -rural or rural areas.
At the regions level, but also for the two largest urban centers, the accommodation cost of housing costs higher fluctuations than the median spending rate for housing, suggesting that more difficult access to affordable housing can also affect income inequality. Specifically, in areas such as the South Aegean, Epirus, Attica, Thessaloniki and Central Macedonia, the highest rates of households are observed without access to affordable housing.
These results, in relation to the evolution of housing costs and available income, suggest that the rise in energy costs and structural changes in household composition of the rental status are one of the key factors that have contributed to the reduction of the two laps of the two -tier survey.
In addition to the differences that arise in the accessibility of housing by geographical area, the study focuses on recognizing the characteristics of households facing the greatest barriers to access to accessible housing.
The descriptive results of the analysis show that the issue of housing accessibility:
- It is related to the ownership status of the residence, which is highly fluctuated per region, based on the finding that in both rounds of survey about 60% of households who spend more than 40% of its available income to meet their mortgage needs,
- more pronounces the younger households,
- is sharpened when the head of the household is unemployed and, finally,
- It is related to marital status, as well as the size of the household.
The BoG study finds that household size, employment and age have strong effects on the possibility of having unacceptable housing.
But the heavier, due to statistical significance, an impact on the possibility of a lack of accessibility seems to have the rental status, as renters and housing loan renters are much higher likely to have no accessible housing compared to households. Also, regarding the purchase of housing, it is confirmed that the level of real estate prices is negatively associated with the accessibility of the housing.
As the BoG finds, the younger and smaller in size households, the unemployed and the lower income households are those for which the issue of housing is more acute.