Footnote | Export Sort: Alphabetically | Ascending | Descending

Click name of country for detailed information
Switzerland 81.45
Estonia 79.06
Ireland 76.74
UK 76.43
Luxembourg 75.94
Netherlands 75.80
Lithuania 75.78
Denmark 75.05
Sweden 74.91
Latvia 74.75
Iceland 74.39
Finland 73.99
Norway 73.97
Germany 73.80
Czech Rep. 73.34
Austria 72.27
Macedonia 70.74
Romania 69.65
Poland 68.26
Bulgaria 67.86
Cyprus 67.85
Belgium 67.85
Malta 67.69
Hungary 65.79
Slovak Rep. 65.73
Turkey 65.23
Albania 64.35
Spain 63.57
France 63.30
Portugal 62.58
Italy 62.53
Montenegro 61.98
Bosnia & H. 60.22
Croatia 59.38
Slovenia 59.20
Serbia 58.88
Belarus 58.59
Moldova 57.96
Russia 57.10
Greece 55.00
Ukraine 48.09
 

Europe: Economic freedom rating

Scores are from 0 to 100, higher scores are more desirable i.e. more conducive to economic growth. The lower the score, the greater the level of government interference in the economy and the less economic freedom a country enjoys.

  • Free 80 - 100;
  • Mostly Free 70 - 79.9;
  • Moderately Free 60 - 69.9;
  • Mostly Unfree 50 to 59.9; and
  • Repressed 0 - 49.9.


Source: The Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal

European statistics. European house price and other economic statistics vary in quality. It is often a surprise to non-Europeans to discover that swathes of this rich, highly developed continent are not covered by good housing statistics.

Northern European countries have generally good house price time-series. In particular, all the Scandinavian countries generate excellent house price statistics. In the Baltics the situation is improving rapidly. Latvia generates an official annual house price time-series, and the realtor Latio publishes a monthly index. Lithuania has no official house price or rents time-series, but the firm Inreal publishes annual prices and rents for Vilnius for a few years. Estonia has high-quality housing statistics, generated by the Statistical Office of Estonia (SOE). Data on house prices, house sales and construction activities, as well as general economics statistics are all available from the SOE.

Central Europe is mixed. German house price statistics are weak. France has very good statistics, the Netherlands has good data, Belgium and Austria have acceptable data. Spain has made giant strides, Portugal is weaker.

Southern Europe tends to have weak statistical data. There is a particular lack of housing statistics in Italy, Greece, and Turkey (though Italy has some private, for-sale, data generators).

Statistics in Eastern Europe are weak. Efforts are being made to change this, for instance Bulgaria began publishing a house price time-series in 2006. Aside from this, the Czech Republic has an official index, and in Poland, REAS Konsulting produces a for-sale index.