Endless buildings and towers, but 57.1% of Albanians live in overcrowded housing

2025-12-22 13:37:00, Ekonomi CNA

Although Albania holds the record in Europe for the weight of construction in relation to the size of the economy and new buildings and towers continue to rise every day, ironically, Albania ranks among the countries with the highest level of housing overcrowding in Europe.

The latest data shows that 57.1% of the population lives in overcrowded housing, a figure much higher than the European Union average, which in 2024 was 16.9%.

According to Eurostat, the highest level is recorded in Montenegro, where 61.6% of the population lives in overcrowded housing.

When a dwelling is considered overcrowded

Eurostat calls a dwelling overcrowded when the family living there does not have enough rooms for the number and composition of its members.

According to this standard, a dwelling must have at least:

-a room for the whole family,

-one room for each couple,

-one room for every single adult,

-a room for two small children,

-or separate rooms for teenagers, according to age and gender.

If these minimum conditions are not met and many people share a few rooms, the dwelling is classified as overcrowded, regardless of its size in square meters. This indicator is used by

Eurostat to measure the quality of living conditions and pressure on housing.

Albania, record for construction spending

Other Eurostat data shows that nominal construction spending in relation to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2023 in Albania was 19.1%, up from 18.8% last year.

This figure is the highest in Europe, while the European Union average for this indicator is around 11%.

Despite construction, Albanian families are unable to buy apartments due to their much faster price increase in relation to income.

According to data previously processed by Monitor, buying a 70 square meter apartment costs 14.8 million lekë, up from 7.8 million lekë a decade ago. To buy this apartment, you now need almost 19 real gross annual salaries (18.6), or almost 6 years more than a decade ago, which is among the highest in Europe.

To buy an entrance ticket, it takes 19 annual salaries, 6 years more than a decade ago, a record in Europe.

europe

According to Eurostat, in 2024, 16.9% of the population in the European Union lived in overcrowded housing, a slight decrease from 18.1% in 2014.

Over 30% of the population in 5 EU countries lived in overcrowded housing. Romania reported the highest percentage (40.7%), followed by Latvia (39.3%), Bulgaria (33.8%), Poland (33.7%) and Croatia (31.7%).

In contrast, the lowest overcrowding rates were recorded in Cyprus (2.4%), Malta (4.4%) and the Netherlands (4.6)./ Monitor