A data-driven approach to assess areas under housing stress in the EU

The Affordable Housing Act (AHA) is a key Commission initiative aiming to enable proportionate measures to address supply and demand mismatches in areas under housing stress. Within this framework, the AHA seeks to establish a common framework for flagging areas potentially under housing stress, clarify the conditions under which targeted and proportionate measures concerning the non-primary use of housing, including short-term rentals, may be justified, and encourage supply-side responses to increase the availability of affordable and social housing. After a thorough assessment of the availability and relevance of data and indicators, the JRC, in coordination with several Commission services, proposed a two-tier approach based on objective and publicly available data to assess areas under housing stress. The first tier combines data on price (Mapadomo) and income (Eurostat) to pre-screen overall housing stress conditions, and can be implemented in a straightforward and consistent manner by competent authorities across all EU Member States. The second tier relies on additional, auxiliary indicators linking to the root causes of the supply-demand mismatches at local level to justify and guide proportional policy development. This visual factsheet summarizes the overall approach, illustrating with recent data at the NUTS3-level how housing stress varies across the EU.