About 63% of foreign citizens in Bulgaria own their own home
About 63 per cent of foreign citizens in Bulgaria own their own home, according to figures released by European Union statistics agency Eurostat on March 15.
Like other EU countries, the rate of home ownership among foreigners is lower than that of nationals, which in Bulgaria was close to 80 per cent in the 25 to 54 age bracket in 2016, according to Eurostat.
Among Bulgarians, while 79.7 per cent in the 25 to 54 age bracket owned their own home, this rose to 92.5 per cent in the 55 to 64 age bracket.
In 2016, three out of every 10 (30.1 per cent) foreign citizens in the EU owned their home, Eurostat said.
This rate was much lower than among nationals, 70.6 per cent of whom owned their home.
The highest home ownership rate among foreign citizens was recorded in Lithuania (88 per cent), followed by Estonia (85.4 per cent) and Croatia (82.4 per cent), while the lowest rate was observed in Slovenia (19.1 per cent), Austria (19.9 per cent) and Italy (20.7 per cent).
Among nationals, the highest rates were observed in Romania (95.6 per cent), Croatia and Lithuania (both 89.9 per cent) and Slovakia (89.5 per cent), and the lowest in Germany (49.8 per cent), Denmark (58.6 per cent), Austria (62.0 per cent) and France (63.4 per cent).
Home ownership rates were lower for foreign citizens than for nationals in all member states, except Estonia, where the share of foreign citizens who owned homes (85.4 per cent) outnumbered nationals (81 per cent).
In contrast, the home ownership rate for nationals was at least three times as high as that for foreign citizens in Austria, Greece and Italy, rising to four times as high in Slovenia, Eurostat said.
(Photo: Clive Leviev-Sawyer)
