The highest increase (18 percent) was for privately rented houses and apartments – with the average monthly rent (including maintenance costs) now €8 per square metre.
Rents for council-owned houses and flats have risen by 13.3 percent to €6.1 per square metre. Rents for cooperative apartments (which are subsidized and require the tenant to pay 12.5 percent of construction costs) rose by 11.2 percent to €6.2 per square metre.
According to Statistik Austria around 21 percent of households in Austria have taken out a loan to help with rental costs – and 38 percent of these households have children.
200,000 households (or five percent) have trouble repaying a loan or meeting their rental costs.
Rental costs for tenants with older rental contracts are typically much lower, whereas tenants signing new contracts are paying an average of €7.8 per square metre. Households with long-term leases of more than 30 years spend on average just €4.6 per square metre, including maintenance costs.
Despite the steep price increases of recent years, housing in Austria is still relatively cheap by international standards, partly as a result of government-subsidised residential construction.
Rents in Vienna and Salzburg are highest, at around €14.50 per square metre per month.
Apartments are more affordable in Graz, with rents ranging from €10.50 to €12.50 per square metre per month.
Vienna has one of the highest percentages of renter households in the world, with about 75% of residential properties rented.
In Austria as a whole, households own 56.4 percent of primary residences, while 41.2 percent are rented. Austria’s home ownership rate is way below the European Union’s average rate of more than 70%.
The high percentage of rented residential properties is partly due to the large proportion of subsidized low-rent apartments in the general rental market, and also down to limited tax incentives for homeownership.
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