Price-to-rent ratio in selected countries globally 2023

Turkey, Colombia, Russia, and Latvia were the countries with the highest house price-to-rent-ratio in the ranking. In all four countries, the ratio exceeded 170 percent, meaning that house price growth had outpaced rents by over 70 percent between 2015 and 2022.

‘House-price-to-rent ratio’

The house-price-to-rent-ratio measures the evolution of house prices compared to rents. It is generally calculated by dividing the median house price by the median annual rent. In this statistic, the values have been normalized with 100 equaling the 2015 ratio. Consequentially, a value under 100 means that rental rates have risen more than house prices. When all OECD countries are considered as a whole, the gap between house prices and rents was wider than in the Euro area.

‘Measures of housing affordability’

The national house-price-to-rent ratio may not fully reflect the cost of housing in a particular country as it does not capture to the price variations that can exist between different regions. It also does not take into consideration the relationship between incomes and housing costs, which is measured by the house-price-to-income and household-rent-to-income ratios. Taking both these factors into account uncovers vast differences in housing affordability between different regions and different professions.