Albanian families live close together, 65% of inhabited apartments are under 69 square meters

2024-09-06 07:55:00, Aktualitet CNA

Albanian families live close together, 65% of inhabited apartments are under 69

Illustrative photo

The country's population is shrinking and aging rapidly and, on the other hand, the influx of new housing is increasing, but the vast majority of those in use are under 69 square meters.

Cens 2023 data show that out of 726,325 habitable dwellings across the country, 533,000 or 65% of the total were less than 69 square meters.

However, over the years, the residential area has increased. In the 2011 Census, 709,865 occupied dwellings were counted across the country, of which 75% or 469,000 were below 69 square meters.

The data show that the number of habitable houses under 40 square meters has dropped significantly. For example, in 2011, there were 218,000 apartments under 40 square meters in use, while in 2023, there were 127,500 such.

From the stock of apartments that are in use, still a large part of them, about 16.6%, are under 40 square meters.

Furthermore, according to Cens 2023, 23.7% of the apartments that are in use are 70-99 square meters. In 2011, about 17% of the apartments in use were at this surface level.

Those over 100 square meters occupied 10% of the total dwellings in use in 2023, from the 7.7% they occupied in 2011.

The construction sector in our country is in a vigorous phase of development of buildings and towers in urban areas, but the data of Cens 2023 revealed that a part of housing in buildings, about 40% of them (365 thousand) in the whole country , are not inhabited by anyone.

According to Cens 2023 data, there are 431,000 apartments in buildings across the country, of which 170,264 are empty and over 261,000 were occupied.

Empty housing is an asset of billions of euros that has been frozen in the form of an investment that does not generate income and employment.

Sources from the market claim that a large part of empty apartments are in the big cities of the country and especially in Tirana and Durrës. According to them, the stock of empty apartments was created by the emigration of families who did not plan to rent.

While most of the stock belongs to the investments made by individuals inside and outside the country.

Often the apartments bought for investment and not rented out are part of a chain used to launder money made illegally./Monitor