Geneva stands out as Europe's most expensive city for apartment purchases in early 2025, with prices reaching a staggering 15,720 euros per square meter. This Swiss city's real estate market dwarfs even high-cost locations like Zurich and London, highlighting the extreme disparities in housing affordability across the continent. The stark contrast between Geneva and more affordable cities like Nantes, France, where the price was 3,700 euros per square meter, underscores the complex factors influencing urban property markets in Europe. Rental market dynamics and affordability challenges While purchase prices vary widely, rental markets across Europe also show significant differences. London maintained its position as the continent's priciest city for apartment rentals in 2023, with the average monthly costs for a rental apartment amounting to 36.1 euros per square meter. This figure is double the rent in Lisbon, Portugal or Madrid, Spain, and substantially higher than in other major capitals like Paris and Berlin. The disparity in rental costs reflects broader economic trends, housing policies, and the intricate balance of supply and demand in urban centers. Economic factors influencing housing costs The European housing market is influenced by various economic factors, including inflation and energy costs. As of April 2025, the European Union's inflation rate stood at 2.4 percent, with significant variations among member states. Romania experienced the highest inflation at 4.9 percent, while France and Cyprus maintained lower rates. These economic pressures, coupled with rising energy costs, contribute to the overall cost of living and housing affordability across Europe. The volatility in electricity prices, particularly in countries like Italy where rates are projected to reach 153.83 euros per megawatt hour by February 2025, further impacts housing-related expenses for both homeowners and renters.

London was the most expensive city to buy an apartment in the United Kingdom, with an average value of ****** euros per square meter in the first quarter of 2025. The price of an apartment in Leeds was significantly lower at approximately ***** euros per square meter.

This repository is the fourth updated version of the attribute-linked residential property price dataset in the UK Data Service ReShare (854240) (https://reshare.ukdataservice.ac.uk/854240/). This dataset contains individual property transactions and associated variables from both Land Registry Price Paid Dataset (LR PPD) and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC, formerly MHCLG) Domestic Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) data. It is a linked dataset produced by address matching between LR PPD data (1/1/1995–31/10/2024) and Domestic EPC data (up to 31/10/2024). It is the full version of the 2024 update of the dataset published in the Greater London Authority (GLA) London Datastore (https://data.london.gov.uk/dataset/house-price-per-square-metre-in-england-and-wales).

The linked dataset (tranall_link_26122024) provided here is the initial, uncleaned version, intended to offer maximum flexibility for users to clean the data according to their research purposes. This linked dataset records over 22 million transactions with 106 variables across England and Wales, covering the period from 01/01/1995 to 31/10/2024. We have provided technical validation and data cleaning code in UKDA ReShare 854240 to help users evaluate the data structure and perform their own cleaning. There is no single way to clean this raw linked dataset, so we encourage users to develop their own cleaning process based on their research needs. This repository also includes the original Land Registry Price Paid Data (LR PPD) and Domestic EPCs used to create the linked dataset (house price per square metre dataset). Unlike previous versions, this updated dataset no longer includes the id variable (created by the authors). Instead, for the first time, both the Domestic EPCs and the linked dataset retain the LMK_KEY variable, which originates from the Domestic EPCs dataset. This change was made because LMK_KEY serves as a unique identifier, with no duplicate records since 2024. Five address-related variables from the original Domestic EPCs dataset(ADDRESS1, ADDRESS2, ADDRESS3, POSTCODE, and ADDRESS) have been removed from the EPC data in this repository. The priceper and classt variables were created by the authors and can be found in the linked dataset (tranall_link_26122024.zip). A detailed explanation of these fields is available on the GLA London Datastore (https://data.london.gov.uk/dataset/house-price-per-square-metre-in-england-and-wales). The lad23cd field originates from the NSPL dataset. Since November 2021, DLUHC has published Domestic EPCs with the Unique Property Reference Number (UPRN). As a result, both the EPC and the full linked dataset in this repository include UPRN information from the Domestic EPCs

This house price per square metre dataset is created through complex address-based matching between the Land Registry’s Price Paid Data (LR-PPD) and property size information from the Domestic Energy Performance Certificates (EPC) data published by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC, formerly MHCLG). Details of the data linkage are published in the UCL Open: Environment along with the related linkage code via the UK Data Service ReShare repository.

During this data linkage process, the transactions assigned as category B (Additional Price Paid entry) and other property types are removed. Here we publish our latest limited attribute version of the uncorrected house price per square metre dataset in England and Wales with the LR-PPD data (1/1/1995-26/2/2021) and Domestic EPCs data (the sixth version, up to 20/9/2020) downloaded on 1/4/2021 for non-commercial purpose. This uncorrected version of house price per square metre dataset records over 18 million transactions with 16 variables in England and Wales since 1995. Unlike in our published article, in this uncorrected version we have not removed transactions with any improbable price per square metre values - i.e. where either the transaction price or total floor area values are null, 0 or too low to be realistic. This uncorrected version of the data will offer the most flexibility for researchers.

We offer technical validation and data cleaning code via the UKDA ReShare repository to help users evaluate the representation of the linked data for a given time period. The data cleaning code shows our methods for cleaning up unlikely floor size records before using this data in analysis. Users can create their own rules and undertake this clean-up process based on their own experience and research aims.

This limited attribute version is published by local authority (2021 version). Details of the 16 variables are described in the explanation file. The National Statistics Postcode Lookup NSPL (May 2021 version) is used to assign the local authority unit for your production of area-based statistics. Users can match historical changes in LA boundaries by choosing appropriate aggregations using, for instance ONSPD, and the postcode variable in our dataset.

An extended version of this dataset containing additional variables is available from UK Data Service Reshare service. Users can directly access this full version dataset (tranall_link_01042021.zip) via the following link: https://reshare.ukdataservice.ac.uk/855033/ . Accompanying LR-PPD and EPC data are also supplied through the ReShare service. Users who would like to attach their own additional variables from the LR-PPD data are advised to use the transactionid variable to link to the LR-PPD (LRPPD_01042021.zip). Users who would like to attach additional variables from the EPC data are advised to use the id variable to link to the sixth version Domestic EPCs (epc6_id.zip).

The 2024 update

The 2024 updated version of the house price per square metre dataset extends the data coverage to the end of 2024 ( hpm_la_2024.zip ). This new version is the result of linking LR-PPD data (01/01/1995–31/10/2024) and Domestic EPCs data (up to 31/10/2024), downloaded on 26/12/2024 for non-commercial purposes. It records over 22 million transactions in England and Wales since 1995.

Unlike the previous versions, this updated removes the id variable (created by the authors) and adds the lmk_key variable (originally from the Domestic EPCs dataset). This change was made because the lmk_key serves as a unique identifier with no duplicate records since 2024.

The match rate of the linked data varies over time; therefore, we recommend users carefully choose the time coverage and validate the data coverage using the match rate. Please note that publicly available Domestic EPCs data starts in 2008, resulting in an extremely low match rate for the period between 1995 and 2008.

The National Statistics Postcode Lookup (November 2024 version) is used to assign local authorities (2023 version)

As of 2025, Zurich, Geneva, and London had some of the highest construction costs in Europe, with a price of ***** and ******U.S. dollars per square meter, respectively. Dublin was the third city at ***** U.S. dollars per square meter, closely followed by Munich and Dublin. When it comes to the construction cost of education buildings in the UK, Glasgow was more expensive than London. However, this is an exception, as generally, London is the most expensive city to build in the UK.

This statistic illustrates the average prices of ultra prime property available on the market in selected locations in Europe as of January 2017. Luxurious properties in Mykonos were priced at an average of *** euros per square foot in 2017, while the price of French Riviera real estate reached approximately **** thousand euros per square foot. The priciest prime real estate was found on the London market, Mayfair district, where one might have paid **** thousand euros per square foot of the luxury residence.

This dataset contains various characteristics and price information about houses in London. Consisting of 1000 entries, it reflects many aspects of each house, from location to interior design. In addition to physical features such as the address, neighborhood, number of rooms, and square footage, it also includes more specific details like the age of the building, garage availability, and balcony presence. Furthermore, the price of each house provides valuable insights into its market value.

Columns;

Address: The address of the house.

Neighborhood: The neighborhood or district where the house is located.

Bedrooms: The number of bedrooms in the house.

Bathrooms: The number of bathrooms in the house.

Square Meters: The total size of the house in square meters.

Building Age: The age of the building, indicating how long ago it was constructed.

Garden: Indicates whether the house has a garden ("Yes" or "No").

Garage: Indicates whether the house has a garage ("Yes" or "No").

Floors: The total number of floors in the house.

Property Type: The type of property, such as "Apartment" or "House."

Heating Type: The type of heating system used in the house (e.g., "Central Heating," "Gas").

Balcony: Indicates whether the house has a balcony ("Yes" or "No").

Interior Style: The interior design style of the house (e.g., "Modern," "Contemporary").

View: The type of view from the house (e.g., "City View," "Sea View").

Materials: The materials used in the construction of the house (e.g., "Brick," "Wood").

Building Status: The current condition of the building (e.g., "New," "Renovated," "Old").

Price (£): The sale price of the house, in British pounds (£).

The United Kingdom (UK) is the most expensive European country for prime industrial rent. The monthly rent for industrial space in London Heathrow in the second quarter of 2025 cost **** euros per square meter. Switzerland, Norway, and Ireland, were the other European countries where the average annual cost of industrial prime rents in the capital city exceeded one ***euros per square meter.

In 2024, the most expensive residential rental market in Europe was Luxembourg with rental costs of approximately *****euros per square meter.Paris and Dublin followed with rental costs of ***and *****euros per square meter. Rents increased across most markets - a trend that could also be observed in the housing market. How much does an apartment cost in different European cities? Renting a furnished studio apartment in some of the leading cities in Europe can cost anywhere between *** euros monthly (Budapest) and ***** euros (Amsterdam) per month. For a furnished one-bedroom apartment in Paris, France, one may be expected to pay on average ***** euros monthly. Which countries have the most affordable housing? The house price to rent ratio is an indicator of the affordability of owning housing over renting across European countries and is calculated as the nominal house prices divided by a rent price index. The higher the ratio, the more the gap between house prices and rental rates has widened since 2015 when the index base was 100. As of the first quarter of 2025, Finland, Italy, and Romania had the lowest house price to rent ratio, meaning that buying a house was most affordable there compared to renting.

The borough with the highest property prices in London, Kensington and Chelsea, had an average price for a flat exceeding *** million British pounds. London is the most populous metropolitan area in the UK, and living in it comes with a price tag. Unsurprisingly, the most expensive boroughs in terms of real estate prices are located in the heart of the metropolis: Kensington and Chelsea, the City of Westminster, and the City of London. In Kensington and Chelsea, home to several museums such as the Natural History Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Science Museum, as well as galleries and theaters, the average price of apartments was over a million British pounds. How have residential property prices developed in recent years? The average house price in England have risen notably over the past decade, despite a slight decline in 2023. While London continues to be the hottest market in the UK, price growth in the capital has moderated. Conversely, prices in the more affordable cities, such as Belfast and Liverpool, have started to rise at a faster pace. Are residential property prices in London expected to grow in the future? Despite property prices declining in 2024, the market is forecast to continue to grow in the next five years, according to a October 2024 forecast. Some of the reasons for this are the robust demand for housing, the chronic shortage of residential properties, and the anticipated decline in mortgage interest rates.

New York was one of the cities worldwide with the highest construction costs for high rise offices as of the third quarter of 2023. The average price of building a high rise office in London amounted to over ***** U.S. dollars per square meter, while the cost for that same type of building in Johannesburg was *** U.S. dollars per square meter. The cost of multi-unit high rise buildings were also the most expensive in New York.

The cost of rent for office space in London is the highest in Europe. In the fourth quarter of 2023, the West End had average rents per square foot of *** British pounds. The average annual rent in London for prime office space was substantially higher than in any other European market. Prime yields For commercial real estate investors, prime yields in London averaged **** percent in 2023. As compared to the rest of the United Kingdom, yields for prime office space in London were notably lower. Commercial investments Office real estate, which comes under the broader term of commercial real estate, traditionally accounts for the lion's share of commercial real estate investments. In recent years, however, this share has been gradually declining. Despite this trend, the UK is one of the leading office real estate investment markets in Europe.

There, the average construction cost of a large shopping center in London was around ***** British pounds in 2024. The most expensive retail spaces in the United Kingdom (UK) were found in London. However, the retail construction costs in Manchester were not far behind. Our report on construction costs in the UK provides deeper insight into the expenses that contractors need to face during their projects in London and the rest of the country. Largest shopping centers in the UK In 2023, Middlebrook Retail & Leisure Park and Castlepoint Shopping Centre were the largest retail parks in the UK. These facilities had a gross internal area of ******* square feet. In comparison, the size of Westfield shopping malls in London and Stratford City were less than half that size. The hottest streets The Bond and Oxford Streets, both located in London were among the high streets in the UK with the lowest retail yields, which were under ***** percent as of 2024. The prime yields of high street retail in other European countries were higher than in the UK.

As with other forms of public building construction, London was the most expensive region in the United Kingdom to build an educational building in. Universities proved to be the most expensive across all regions. The average price per square meter of internal area for a university in London was ***** British pounds in 2018. This was an increase of ** percent compared to the previous year. By comparison, educational facilities located in Northern Ireland were the least costly.

Kier Construction leading contractor

Kier Construction Limited-Building UK was the leading contractor for educational facilities in the UK. In 2018, the construction firm was awarded projects with a combined value of *** million British pounds. This was ** percent more than the second entry.

Number of universities stable

The number of universities in the country has stayed stable since 2012/13. In the past two years, there were *** institutions of higher education. While having been relatively constant in the past five years, there was a noticeable jump in the number of universities at the beginning of the century.

In 2024, London had the highest housing construction costs for residential buildings in the United Kingdom. The expense of building an apartment high-rise in the UK's capital amounted to ***** British pounds per square meter of internal area, while the cost of townhouses were ***** British pounds per square meter. Manchester was the second city on the list with the highest residential construction costs.

In the second quarter of 2025, London (West End) was the market with the most expensive prime office space worldwide. The net effective cost for a prime office in London cost close to ****** U.S. dollars annually. In second and third markets in the ranking, Hong Kong and Midtown New York, prices also exceeded *** U.S. dollars per square foot, with Hong Kong at ****** U.S. dollars and New York Midtown at ****** U.S. dollars. The global office real estate sector was severely affected by the coronavirus pandemic and the political and economic uncertainty that followed. With many companies placing expansion plans on hold and transitioning to hybrid working models, vacancies across many markets spiked and leasing activity slowed down.

This statistic displays the prime headline costs of warehouse rent across European cities as of the first half of 2021 in euros, per square meter per month. In this case, according to the source, prime warehouse locations have been categorized as spaces that are deemed to be at the top open-market tier of rent up to ************** square meters. The warehouse rents included spaces that are of grade A quality in the best locations in the market, with up to ** percent of the space dedicated to offices and between * and 10-meter ceiling height.

London soars in price
Due to its central location and capabilities of worldwide distribution, warehouse space in London had the highest monthly price at **** euros per square meter, as of the first half of 2021. At the other end of the table was the Polish city of Łódź with prime headline rents of *** euros per square meter per month.

UK prime warehouse rents
The price per square foot of smaller industrial warehousing was more expensive than that of larger warehousing. Other factors that could affect pricing included location, proximity to major road systems, key population areas, price of developing land and staff costs. Prices for prime small shed real estate in the United Kingdom (excluding London) as of the first half of 2021 varied from ** British pounds in Borehamwood to five British pounds in Belfast. Inside of London, prime rental costs can reach as much as ** British pounds per square foot.

London was one of the most expensive cities to build a home in Europe in 2024. The cost of constructing a high-rise apartment in the Irish capital was around ***** U.S. dollars per square meter cheaper than in London. Paris had lower housing construction costs than in Amsterdam, Munich, or Dublin.

Vacancy rates are a measurement of unoccupied properties during a given period. Vacancy rates are a good indication of an area’s desirability and opportunity for development. High vacancy rates can indicate an economic downturn, a lack of demand, or possibly that standards do not meet speculative renters’ needs. Low vacancy rates are, in general, considered a good thing as it means there is a good level of demand from customers, although low vacancy rates may also indicate a need for more development which is not being met. Prime rents Prime rents for office space in London ranged between ** British pounds and *** British pounds per square foot in 2023. London also had the highest prime rents per square meter of any city in Europe. Prime yields Yields measure the amount of the expected income on investments made as a percentage. Yields consider the cost of buying a property, its running costs, and the income generated through renting the property. Yields grow or decrease based on occupancy rates of the area and industry, as well as demand and confidence. In 2023, prime yields for office property in London were the lowest in Mayfair and St. James'.

In the first quarter of 2025, London West End - Bond Street was the most expensive location for prime high street rents in the UK, with prices reaching 2,500 British pounds per square foot. The West End was ranked ahead of London City, which came in third. In Manchester, the annual costs of rental per square foot of prime retail real estate amounted to 235 British pounds. Retail warehouses Retail warehouses typically range from 50,000 to hundreds of thousands of square feet. They are used for keeping and distributing inventory. Retail warehouses include loading docks, truck doors and large parking lots; also, they may contain a limited amount of office space. Prime retail warehouse properties belong to the wider category of industrial property, along with other real estate types, such as distribution buildings, showroom facilities, manufacturing buildings, cold storage facilities, telecom or data hosting centers, "flex" buildings denoting more than one industrial or commercial facility housed in the same building, and finally R&D buildings. Prime yields of high street retail across Europe Retail real estate prime yields in Europe were the lowest in Zurich, Switzerland, and the highest in Bucharest, Romania in 2025. As could be expected, larger cities in Europe tended to produce lower yields, due to the lower risk associated with these markets. Locations with lower yields tend to have steady occupancy rates and rental growth.