Press release

The European Mortgage Federation (EMF) is pleased to announce the publication of the 2023 edition of Hypostat, the EMF-ECBC’s annual statistical publication encompassing data on recent developments in housing and mortgage markets in Europe and beyond.

The 2023 edition (covering data until end 2022) presents data and analyses for 31 European countries (the EU 27 plus Norway, Iceland, Switzerland and the United Kingdom), as well as data from nine additional countries further afield (Australia, Canada, Brazil, Japan, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Turkey and the United States of America).

Besides the country specific data, key facts reported in Hypostat 2023 include:

• The European mortgage and housing finance sectors face three key challenges.
  Firstly, from an environmental standpoint, European residential dwellings must adapt to rapidly changing climate conditions and comply with new building energy performance requirements, to contribute towards meeting the EU’s climate goals. The environmental standpoint is elaborated further in two articles in Hypostat 2023.
  Secondly, the demographic changes in Europe, which depict different dynamics in different regions and cities. This leads to heterogenous challenges with some areas facing demographic expansion and house price increases whilst others witness people leaving and house prices falling.
  Lastly, rising financing costs, driven by central banks’ efforts to counter rising inflationary pressure, puts pressure on the affordability of housing and impacts transactions.
• On average, the total number of building permits issued decreased by 6.5% in the EU27, for a total amount of 1.67 mn permits, after a significant increase in 2021 of 11.2%. Over the last 10-year period (2013-2022), the number of building permits issued in the EU overall grew by almost 40%.
• The average, unweighted EU27 house price index grew further by 11.3% in 2022, after a 11.1% increase in 2021, continuing a trend that began in 2013. However, this trend stopped in several countries starting from 2022.
• In 2022, the total volume of outstanding mortgage loans in the EU27 reached EUR 6.7 tn, a 3.6% y-o-y increase. Adding the UK, Norway and Iceland to the EU stock, the figure reached EUR 8.9 tn outstanding, a new all-time high. The European mortgage market is dominated by a handful of countries: France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the UK, which considered altogether, represent more than 75% of the outstanding mortgage market of the EU27 and UK combined.
• The development of average European interest rates on mortgages interrupted the downward trend which had been observed since the Global Financial Crisis of 2008. At the end of 2022, average unweighted EU27 interest rates on mortgages stood at 3.11%, an increase of 1.09 pps compared to 2021. The preference for fixed or floating mortgages varies across the EU27, in the absence of a common tradition in terms of lending or borrowing and as a result of differences in national credit frameworks.

Hypostat 2023 is the result of a collaborative effort by EMF national delegations and external experts. On behalf of the EMF Research & Data Committee and its Chairman, Mr Gyula Nagy, which coordinates the preparation of each year’s report, we would like to sincerely thank all contributors for making the publication of Hypostat 2023 possible.

This year’s report can be downloaded here.

Commenting on Hypostat 2023, Luca Bertalot, EMF-ECBC Secretary General, stated:

“Housing and mortgage markets are key drivers for the building of a unified European transition economy and will play a central role in strategies to meet the continent’s net zero targets. The success of the Single Market and of the Capital Markets Union are rooted in the capabilities of market participants and citizens to finance loans to facilitate affordability and allow for the retrofitting of buildings, all of which promotes citizens’ social integration in their local communities. Owning a property and settling in a community makes people feel at home in areas that were previously unknown. The EMF-ECBC remains committed to acting as a market think-tank and catalyst in supporting the objectives and achievements of the NextGenerationEU goals.

Housing markets are a central means to drive integration and social stability in villages, towns, cities, regions and countries across Europe, and at a global level. Indeed, the hope for a better future and, moreover, the microeconomic incentives to access affordable and sustainable housing are the basis for securing macroeconomic financial stability and social integration in the Single Market via an ecosystem where no one is left behind.”