How UK property prices compare with the rest of Europe

The UK was the ninth most expensive out of 40 European countries to buy a two-bedroom flat

The UK is among the most expensive countries in Europe to buy a two-bedroom flat, coming ninth in a ranking of average prices across 40 European countries.

The average cost of a two-bedroom flat in the UK is £263,000, according to comparison website Finder, which has analysed property prices around the world.

British buyers are spending £70,000 or 35 per cent more than the European average of £193,000, and 49 per cent more than the global average of £176,000.

Similar sized properties cost £160,000 in Spain, £178,000 in Italy and £295,000 in France, according to the data published in September.

Switzerland was the most expensive country, with a two-bedroom flat costing an average £772,000, followed by Luxembourg (£547,000), Germany (£328,000), Austria (£314,000) and Norway (£305,000).

The least expensive was North Macedonia (£69,000), followed by Ukraine (£70,000), Bulgaria (£81,000) and Belarus (£84,000).

The cost of similar-sized properties in each country was estimated based on the median area of two-bedroom flat in the UK (59.11 sq m) from a survey by crowd-sourced data site Numbeo.

When looking at the prices of properties in European cities, London was the third most expensive, with the average cost of a two-bedroom flat at £799,000, behind Zurich (£1.2m) and Geneva (£945,000).

London was also found to be the seventh most expensive city in the world to buy a flat, but this year’s figure was down slightly from the average price in 2022 when it was £814,000.

The least expensive city was Bitola in North Macedonia (£47,000). Three of the five cheapest cities were in Ukraine and Russia, both of which are currently at war.

According to the latest data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the average UK house price in September 2023 was £291,000, a fall of 0.1 per cent from the same month last year.

House prices have also fallen by 1.7 per cent in the euro area and by 1.1 per cent in the EU between April and June compared with compared with the same quarter of the previous year, according to the latest numbers from the European Statistical Office, Eurostat.

It marked the first time European house prices fell year-on-year since 2014, Eurostat reported last month.

Germany recorded the sharpest annual decrease over the second quarter of 2023, at -9.9 per cent, followed by Denmark (-7.6 per cent) and Sweden at (-6.8 per cent).

Croatia had the largest increase at +13.7 per cent, followed by Bulgaria (+10.7 per cent) and Lithuania at (+9.4 per cent).

Investment Synergy - No real surprises, but does make sense of why there is a influx of Europeans predominately buying and settling in Spain, costs of property and cost of living as importantly, a key factor, however as always London dominates and distorts property values in the UK and is too often viewed as the

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