Real estate: Bucharest and Cluj rents, among the highest in Europe

The price of rents are growing rapidly everywhere in Europe, but Bucharest and Cluj, are two cities in EU with the highest increases, according to the Social Monitor, a project of Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Romania. In Cluj, 2023 rents were 80% higher than in 2015, while in Bucharest the rise was 51% in the same period. Among cities included in the study, only in Berlin and Athens the average price increases for renting an apartment with one bedroom were higher. Data came from the data base of numbeo.com.   In recent years there has been a massive acceleration of internal migration in all EU countries, mainly toward large cities. In order to make those movements sustainable from the economic point of view, newcomers must have sufficiently high incomes to cover living costs, including housing. In fact, even average incomes in cities grew considerably in the same period of time. In Bucharest, average incomes grew from 483 euros in 2015 to 956 euros in 2023, that is about 98%, while in Cluj those incomes went up from 421 euros in 2015 to 962 euros in 2023, that is about 128%.   On the other hand, income growths in other European cities were lower.   On the average, people living in Bucharest pay about 53% of their monthly incomes to rent a single room apartment in a central location, while in Cluj people pay 55% of their monthly incomes for the same kind of apartment. Of the cities studied, only Athens exceeds 50% of the average monthly income to rent an apartment with central location. On the other hand, in Sofia, rent for a central one-room apartment represents 42% of the average monthly income, in Berlin it is 41% and in Lyon about 38%.   This change shows that in general, average incomes in Bucharest and Cluj went up slightly more than rents. This dynamics certainly shows the change of economic structure in those cities, while the average income inevitably hides a significant inequality. The good news is that , although people in Bucharest and Cluj spent in 2023 more than 50% of their incomes to rent one-room apartments in a central location, the percentage was dropping compared to previous years, when rents represented even 60% or 70% of average incomes in 2015.