When Bex Burch swapped the choppy world of private renting in the UK for a new life in Berlin, “it was a weight off my shoulders,” she said. After spells in at least 10 rentals in London and Brighton over 15 years – and two evictions – she discovered having somewhere to live need not be so stressful.
“I felt like instead of being just a renter while I am living here, this is my home,” said the 39-year-old musician. It was “a profound feeling”.
A key difference behind that sense of being settled is that tenants cannot be forced out for no reason in the German capital. The numbers are also stark: Burch was paying about 30% less in rent for 50% more space in Berlin compared with London.
It is no surprise then that Germans typically stay 11 years in rented homes on average, compared with 2.5 years in the UK, according to one study. The average German renter is aged closer to 50, while in the UK the bulk of tenants are younger. More than half of German households rent privately, compared with 20% in England and Wales and 15% in Scotland.
Millions of German renters belong to tenant organisations, affording them greater influence over landlords, and there have been limits on in-tenancy rent rises. It seems to underscore that private renting can work better than it does in Britain.
Yet Germany is not a renting paradise. The stability of tenancies means acquiring one can be arduous. In cities such as Berlin, rents have more than doubled in some areas since 2015. Nevertheless, it remains one of many EU nations where renting is cheaper and more stable than the UK.
The UK recently surpassed Norway to become the European country in which the greatest proportion of households now have to spend more than 40% of their disposable income on mortgage and rent – what economists call “housing overburden”.
It is a phrase that does not quite do justice to the life-limiting impact of in effect spending close to half your time at work toiling for your landlord, leaving less for leisure, making plans for the future and for retirement.
Of developed nations worldwide, the burden is only greater in New Zealand, according to figures from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) – 24% to the UK’s 23%.
In France just one in 10 private renters are overburdened. In Germany a mere 5%. In simple terms, there are no European countries where paying the monthly housing bill has such an impact on living standards as the UK.
As Burch says from her apartment in the Wedding area of Berlin: “The UK now feels like it’s the outlier.”
A search on property websites illustrates the phenomenon. A two-bed apartment in the German city of Bremen can be rented for as little as £650 a month while two beds in Bristol are often about £1,000 more. A two-bedroom home close to the Mediterranean in Genoa, Italy, is available for £500 a month but costs about three times the amount in Brighton on the Channel.
And that is before we consider London, where nearly one in three people live in private rented homes, and the best apartments are more expensive a square foot than any city in Europe – including Paris, Rome and Amsterdam, according to the property agent Savills.
There are extremes elsewhere. In Lisbon, workers such as Margarida Custódio are living with the consequences of deregulation, a pandemic-era drive to attract “digital nomads” and more holiday rentals. She recently told the Guardian she had a job in human resources earning €930 (£795) a month after tax but €700 went on rent. She was “living on the edge”, she said.
There have been protests demanding the right to housing, and the average monthly rent for a newly let one-bedroom apartment in Lisbon hit more than 100% of the reported average net monthly income during the pandemic, according to Housing Europe, a research body.
Private rents are rising in every EU country except Greece. Between 2010 and 2023 average rents increased by 19% in the EU. Office for National Statistics figures show a 30% rise in England, albeit often from a higher base. Since Brexit, rental cost hikes in the UK and EU have been more comparable, although UK rents have risen slightly faster.
The fundamentals of British housing markets are very different from those of many of the other European nations. In Denmark, three times more homes are rented out by cooperatives and non-profits than private landlords. And there are signs of a solution to Britain’s rent problem in Austria, where a quarter of homes are social housing, compared with 17% in England and Wales, and 23% in Scotland.
Housing Europe cited research showing that not-for-profit housing had a price-dampening effect on the wider market. “A 10% increase in the share of non-profit housing associations in Austria can lead to an average decrease in non-regulated rents of about 5%,” a spokesperson said.
Most European nations are facing housing challenges. Costs of construction, renovation and financing have been rising in countries including Germany where, according to Housing Europe, a fall in new building of a third is possible. It is “likely to exacerbate shortages in available social and affordable housing which will show two to three years down the road”, the organisation said.
In Brussels, where tenancies are more secure and property is cheaper than in London, there was a 6% rise in demand for social housing between 2020 and 2022. And the number of households applying for social housing in France has reached 2.4m – 16% more than in 2016.
But while powers such as no-fault evictions persist in the UK, Britons will struggle to feel they can really call their private rental “home”.
