Housing crisis threatens to fracture Central and Eastern Europe

Despite world-beating home ownership rates in CEE, generally exceeding 80 percent and often surpassing 90 percent in many states – for example, Romania (96 percent), Slovakia (94 percent), Croatia and Hungary (both 91 percent), Lithuania (88.8 percent), and Poland (87.3 percent) – these high averages obscure a critical imbalance. Ample housing exists in regions with few job opportunities, while select urban cores, offering robust work prospects, suffer from both a scarcity of housing and exorbitant prices.