Where in the World: The Countries With The Highest Rates Of Homeownership

The housing market is a complex one and younger people are more worried than ever before about owning a home.

Seven in 10 people worry that they will be unable to own their own home according to recent news, while homeownership was at a 30-year low last year.

In the UK, around 63% of occupiers own their property, but how does that compare to the rest of the world?

At Property Rescue we decided to explore the wider market and reveal the countries with the highest levels of homeownership across the world.

Highest Homeownership Rates

The UK lies well outside the top 35 countries when it comes to the percentage of people that own their property.

It’s in Eastern Europe where the highest percentage of homeowners live, with a staggering 96.4% of households owning their property in Romania.

That’s almost six percent higher than the second highest rate of homeownership which belongs to Singapore (90.8%) and a huge 23% higher than the UK.

Interestingly, Ireland also has a higher rate than the UK by around 4%, while neighbours the Netherlands (67.8%) and Belgium (71.4%) also have a higher rate of ownership than this country.

The Top 10 Countries With Highest Rate Of Property Ownership:

There’s a clear trend in homeownership, with large parts of Eastern Europe having the highest percentage globally, despite not being the most economically wealthy in the world.

Of course, a country’s economy largely dictates the housing market, so we decided to delve a little deeper and look at house prices and the average wage in these nations.

Average House Prices Around The World

In the UK, the average cost of a property currently stands at £232,797 or around £2,678 per square metre, which is a significant amount more than in Romania, where property costs around £836 per square metre.

Only one of the countries in the top 10 highest percentage of homeowners has a higher average price in the UK.

In Singapore the average cost of a property stands at £6,241 per square metre, that’s over twice as high as Britain, although the average wage in the Asian nation is also higher.

Almost every other nation has a cost that’s at least around half as much as the cost of buying in the UK, but naturally,  cost of living and the average monthly wage also falls much shorter.

Average Wage Around The World

Putting homeownership into context relies heavily on placing earnings beside the price of housing. This gives a much better understanding of why other countries have a much higher level of ownership than within the UK.

In the UK, the average monthly wage after tax is around £1,800 which equates to around 67% of the average price per square metre, and 0.77% of the total average price of a home.

The average is incredibly higher in the UK than most countries within the top 10. However, such is the price of UK property, is that it would take over 10 years to purchase a home, excluding any cost of living, bills, etc.

That figure is naturally much lower in other countries as well as more homes expected to be inherited and stay in the family.

In India for example, 57% of people live in homes that have been inherited, while 38% are homes purchased or constructed themselves.

This is a similar story across many countries in Eastern Europe and is a large reason as to why the homeownership percentage is so high in these nations.

It’s interesting that the UK has a higher wage to cost of square foot ratio than any other nation on this list and is perhaps a clear warning sign that there is problems within the market currently.

It’s estimated that there’s around £400billion tied up in property owned by people aged 65-85 which will eventually be passed on to grandchildren. This could put the UK a little closer to the top homeowners in future, but with an ageing population it seems that it really is affecting the number of people buying over renting.