Home sweet home is worth gold (wort.lu)

People in Luxembourg do love to live in premises they own though this may be – at least financially speaking – quite demanding. 73% of the local citizens own the real estate property where they and their household reside; that figure is particularly impressive by taking into account that prices haven’t stopped raising in recent years. By comparing this figure with international standards, the Grand Duchy stands among the countries with the highest percentage of owners and the lowest rate of people renting the premises where they reside.

These figures are even higher by selecting only those residents who have got Luxembourgish nationality. The percentage of those who own the house or apartment where they live moves up to 84%, while only 13% of Luxembourgish nationals are renting their house or flat. The percentage of owners drops down to a minimum for those residents who have got Portuguese (54%) or French (53%) citizenship. All these data are taken by a report issued by Statec this past Friday.   

Germany and Switzerland: the majority does rent their premises

Normally we assume that, if the prices of real estate properties are increasing, that shall convince people they shall rather own than rent, since they could benefit of an increase in the value of their property and would also not be confronted by the inevitable increase of the monthly rents to be paid.

Luxembourg is among those countries where the majority of the residents have decided to buy the house or apartment where they live. Similar figures are registered in countries that were recently affected by a housing-bubble burst, such as Spain (87%) and Ireland (78%) as showed by stats provided by ifo. On the other hand, countries where the majority of the people rent their premises are Germany (the percentage of owners standing there at 43%) and Switzerland (35%).