Indicator 1.50 Affordable Housing - proxy indicator

Housing affordability refers to households’ ability to meet housing costs in relation to their disposable income. The original EU SDG indicator 1.50, “Housing cost overburden rate by poverty status”, measures the share of the population living in households where total housing costs exceed 40% of disposable income. As suitable data for Bosnia and Herzegovina are not available under the harmonised EU-SILC methodology, the national presentation uses two proxy measures: the price-to-income ratio and the housing affordability index. According to the 2025 document Comparative Analysis of Housing Policies in Selected WB Cities and EU Cities, their values for Bosnia and Herzegovina are 13.5 and 1.0, respectively. A lower price-to-income ratio indicates better housing affordability, whereas a higher value of the affordability index indicates better affordability. These measures provide additional information on housing affordability, but they do not directly measure the share of households overburdened by housing costs.

The source is the 2025 document Comparative Analysis of Housing Policies in Selected WB Cities and EU Cities, which examines housing affordability and housing policies in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Denmark and the Netherlands. The analysis draws on a review of available data and documents and eight semi-structured interviews with stakeholders from these countries. The price-to-income ratio is expressed in years of annual disposable family income required to match the dwelling price under the assumptions of the methodology applied. Its denominator is annual disposable family income, and the result is expressed in years of income. The housing affordability index is expressed as a dimensionless index value, not as a percentage.

The national presentation includes the values for Bosnia and Herzegovina reported in the 2025 document: a price-to-income ratio of 13.5 and a housing affordability index of 1.0. The values represent two different measures and cannot be directly compared with each other. They are not percentages of the population or shares of households spending more than 40% of their disposable income on housing. Due to the limited availability of comparable and up-to-date data and the absence of a continuous time series, changes over time cannot be assessed reliably. The proxy measures are not directly comparable with the original EU SDG indicator 1.50.

Housing affordability is relevant to living standards and to reducing the risk of poverty and social exclusion. The price-to-income ratio provides insight into the financial accessibility of home purchase, while the affordability index offers an additional measure for comparative assessment of housing affordability. No specific quantitative national target has been established for this proxy indicator in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The published values describe housing affordability and do not demonstrate progress towards a defined national target.