A comparison of homeownership rates across European Union countries : how fares Ireland?

Increasing homeownership has been a long-standing policy objective of many western economies. However, homeownership rates have stalled across many of these countries in recent years due to the significant volatility many housing markets have experienced with house prices, in particular, varying substantially over the period. In this paper, using data from the EU-SILC we examine trends in homeownership across twelve EU countries. In particular, we focus on the demographic, income and employment characteristics of home-owning households across households in different European countries. Initially, we focus on these trends for the Irish market, however, we then compare the results across the EU sample in order to benchmark the performance of the Irish residential market. This market was especially impacted by the global financial crisis (GFC) between 2008 and 2010. This should help provide policymakers with a clearer perspective on the measures that need to be undertaken if homeownership rates are to be maintained or increased.