Hong Kong remains the least affordable metropolis for homebuyers among the cities surveyed by UBS: a skilled service sector worker needs about 15 years’ worth of annual income to purchase a 60-square-meter apartment near the city center.
These figures are contained in the UBS Global Real Estate Bubble Index 2026, published on September 22.
More than ten years’ income is also required to purchase a similar apartment in Tokyo, Paris, London, and Seoul.
UBS also notes a high burden on buyers’ incomes in Singapore, Lisbon, Zurich, Geneva, São Paulo, Munich, Sydney, Milan, and New York.
At the other end of the ranking are Miami and Dubai. A 60-square-meter apartment there costs roughly five times the annual income of a skilled worker.
However, a relatively lower ratio of real estate prices to wages does not necessarily mean affordable housing. In the U.S. and Canada, affordability is further limited by high mortgage rates, bank requirements, and other costs of homeownership.
According to UBS’s calculations, compared to 2021, the average skilled worker in the cities surveyed can now afford about one-third less living space on their income.
Separately, UBS compared real estate prices to rent. The highest ratio was recorded in Zurich: the cost of an apartment is equivalent to approximately 46 years of rent. In Geneva, the ratio is about 40 years, while in Munich, Frankfurt, and Hong Kong, it exceeds 30 years.
A high ratio of purchase price to rent may indicate that investors are anticipating further significant price increases. If such expectations wane, the risk of property value losses increases, notes UBS.
Kyiv was not included in this study.
According to Experts.news, Lisbon was included in the UBS Global Real Estate Bubble Index for the first time and was immediately classified as a city at high risk of a housing price “bubble.”
The Portuguese capital’s index stood at 1.04 in 2026, according to a UBS study published on September 22. The bank classifies readings between 1.0 and 1.5 as “elevated risk.”
Over the past decade, real housing prices in Lisbon have risen by an average of nearly 7% annually—the highest rate among all 23 cities included in the study.
Since mid-2025 alone, housing prices, adjusted for inflation, have risen by an additional 10% or so.
UBS attributes the market’s long-term upswing, in particular, to policies aimed at attracting foreign investment and new residents.
However, analysts note that the factors that previously supported growth are gradually weakening. Lisbon has become one of Europe’s least affordable housing markets; rent growth has stalled, and demand is beginning to shift toward more affordable areas outside the city.
UBS cites Portugal’s shift toward a more selective immigration policy as an additional factor.
In terms of risk, Lisbon now ranks just behind Zurich, Tokyo, Miami, Dubai, Seoul, and Geneva. At the same time, it ranks ahead of Amsterdam, Madrid, Frankfurt, Munich, Paris, and London.
The study does not imply that UBS is forecasting a drop in prices in Lisbon. The index points to a buildup of imbalances between real estate prices, household incomes, rental rates, lending volumes, and other fundamental indicators.
Kyiv was not included in this study.
Zurich and Tokyo were the only two of the world’s 23 largest cities that UBS classified in 2026 as having a high risk of a housing real estate bubble.
According to the UBS Global Real Estate Bubble Index 2026, published on September 22, Zurich’s index stood at 1.69 and Tokyo’s at 1.54. UBS considers an index above 1.5 to indicate high risk.
The “elevated risk” category included Miami with an index of 1.41, Dubai at 1.16, Seoul at 1.13, Geneva at 1.12, and Lisbon at 1.04.
Moderate risk was recorded in Amsterdam at 0.95, Madrid at 0.86, Los Angeles at 0.69, Sydney (0.68), Frankfurt (0.64), Toronto (0.63), Vancouver (0.62), Munich and Hong Kong (both 0.61), Singapore (0.54), and Milan (0.50).
UBS classified Paris (0.33), London (0.32), New York (0.28), San Francisco (-0.02), and São Paulo (-0.24) as low-risk markets.
In Zurich, real housing prices have risen by nearly 140% over the past 20 years, while rental rates have increased by approximately 40% and household incomes by 30%. The ratio of purchase price to rental cost has reached 46 years—the highest figure among all cities studied by UBS.
In Tokyo, inflation-adjusted housing prices are now about 50% higher than they were seven years ago. Over the past year, they have risen by another 6% or so.
UBS notes that, on average, real housing prices in all surveyed cities rose by only 0.5% over the past year; however, a significant gap has emerged between individual markets.
The bank emphasizes that a high index reading does not predict an inevitable crash. A correction could occur due to changes in interest rates, investor sentiment, or a significant increase in housing supply.
Germany remains a country with one of the lowest homeownership rates in Europe, according to the Pestel-Institut. In 2025, only 43.5% of the country’s private households lived in their own apartment or house. This is the lowest figure in approximately two decades.
As reported by rebuild.news, owning a home in Germany is now more of an exception than the standard model of living: the majority of households continue to rent real estate.
Germany’s official statistics confirm this characteristic of the market. According to the Federal Statistical Office Destatis and Eurostat, in 2025, 52.8% of Germany’s population lived in rented housing. This is the highest share of tenants among all European Union countries. For comparison, in France it stood at 38.6%, in Spain at 26.4%, in Poland at 12.8%, and in Slovakia at only 6.2%.
The figures from the Pestel-Institut and Destatis differ somewhat due to methodology. Pestel estimates the share of households living in owner-occupied housing, while Eurostat data cited by Destatis are calculated at the population level. The German statistical office itself also publishes a homeownership rate of 41.9% for another sample of households.
The Pestel-Institut study shows that the problem is particularly noticeable among young Germans. Almost three quarters of residents aged 25-45 live in rented housing. Researchers cite rising construction costs, mortgage interest rates and insufficient affordability of home purchases for middle-income families as the main reasons.
Since 2000, the cost of constructing apartment buildings in Germany, according to the study, has risen by approximately 160%, while consumer prices have increased significantly more slowly. Even families with two average incomes in many regions face difficulties purchasing their own homes.
At the same time, the situation is complicated by an insufficient supply of new apartments. In 2025, around 206.6 thousand housing units were completed in Germany – 18% fewer than a year earlier, and the lowest figure since 2012.
The high share of tenants has long been a characteristic of the German real estate market model. A developed long-term rental market, strong tenant protection and a historically relatively low proportion of homeowners distinguish Germany from most Central and Eastern European countries, where the overwhelming majority of the population owns its housing.
At the same time, rents under new contracts are also rising rapidly. According to the European Commission, new rental rates in Germany increased by approximately 50.8% in 2013-2024, and by 76.3% in the seven largest cities.
GERMANY, HOMEOGERMANY, HOMEOWNERSHIPWNERSHIP, HOUSING, REAL ESTATE, RENTAL
The Kyiv and Lviv regions together accounted for over 1.1 million square meters of new residential construction reported in Ukraine from January through June 2026.
According to the State Statistics Service, 599,300 square meters were reported in the Kyiv region and 501,500 square meters in the Lviv region.
Another 437,900 square meters were accounted for by Kyiv, 328,700 square meters by the Odesa region, and 248,400 square meters by the Ivano-Frankivsk region.
The concentration is particularly noticeable in terms of the number of future apartments. In the Kyiv region, approximately 9.1 thousand apartments were announced; in the Lviv region, 7.2 thousand; and in the Ivano-Frankivsk region, 5.8 thousand
Together, these three regions alone accounted for over 22 thousand apartments—that is, a significant portion of the total new supply of multifamily housing announced nationwide in the first half of the year.
The regional breakdown reflects an ongoing redistribution of development activity. Kyiv and the Kyiv region remain the largest metropolitan market, while the Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk regions maintain a significant volume of construction in the western part of the country.
At the same time, the trend is uneven: in the Kyiv region, the volume remained virtually unchanged from last year’s level, while in Kyiv it decreased by 10.7%, and in the Ivano-Frankivsk region—by 20.5%.
Source: State Statistics Service of Ukraine.
Despite a sharp recovery in 2025 and growth in indicators in the second quarter of 2026, Ukraine’s new housing construction market remains significantly below the pre-war level.
According to the Experts Club information and analytical center, based on data from the State Statistics Service, the total area of new housing construction in 2025 amounted to 5.8 million sq. m, increasing by 49.4% compared with 2024.
However, compared with 2021, when the figure reached 12.7 million sq. m, the volume remained approximately 54% lower, that is, more than twice as low.
In 2022, the area of new construction amounted to 6.6 million sq. m, in 2023 — 4.2 million sq. m, and in 2024 — 3.9 million sq. m.
Thus, the lowest figure for the period under review was recorded in 2024, after which the market began to recover noticeably in 2025.
In the second quarter of 2026, this process continued: the area of residential buildings declared for the start of construction increased by 6.1% year on year — to 1.65 million sq. m.
At the same time, the sustainability of the recovery remains ambiguous. For the entire first half of the year, the area of new apartment building construction was 2.3% lower than a year earlier, while the number of declared apartments decreased by 6%.
At the same time, construction costs continue to rise rapidly. In July 2026, construction prices were 23.7% higher than in July of the previous year.
Housing prices themselves are also rising: in the second quarter of 2026, they increased by 19.6% year on year and by 3.8% compared with the first quarter.
Thus, the Ukrainian market is simultaneously facing a recovery in construction activity, high inflation in construction costs, and a significant lag behind the supply volumes typical of the period before the full-scale war.
