A decade of dramatically different house-price growth
House prices have risen across most of Europe over the past decade, but the size of the increase has differed sharply between countries. Hungary stands apart, with its House Price Index increasing by about 223% between 2016 and 2025.
Portugal and Lithuania followed with increases of about 146% and 145%, while Iceland recorded a rise of around 140%. In total, house prices more than doubled in 11 of the 28 countries included in the comparison.
At the other end of the ranking, Italy recorded an increase of about 16%. Finland was the only country in the comparison where the House Price Index was slightly lower in 2025 than in 2016, falling by about 2% over the period.
What the index does — and does not — show
The House Price Index measures how residential property prices change over time. It is designed to compare price developments rather than the absolute cost of buying a home, so a country with faster growth does not necessarily have the most expensive housing in Europe.
Price growth also does not tell us on its own how affordable housing is for households. Affordability depends on factors such as income, mortgage costs, rents and housing tenure. We examine those differences separately in our deeper analysis of house prices and housing affordability across Europe.