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Are Italian homes really some of the smallest in Europe?

The Local Italy
The Local Italy - [email protected]
Are Italian homes really some of the smallest in Europe?
Photo: AFP

With everyone confined indoors for weeks under lockdown, many people have noted the often tiny size of living spaces in Italy. But just how small are Italian homes on average?

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Statistics show that Italians live in some of the smallest and most overcrowded homes in Europe.

According to property website Idealista, the average size of an Italian home is 81 square metres – smaller than the Spanish (97 m2), German (109 m2) and French (112 m2) averages.

READ ALSO: What's wrong with the Italian property market?

More than half of all Italians live in apartment blocks, Idealista writes, with over 25 percent of Italians living in large condominium buildings featuring ten or more apartments, and a further 27 percent in smaller blocks.

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The situation in Germany is quite similar, and in Spain some 44 percent of all families live in large apartment buildings.

In France, however, low-density housing such as terraced or single-family homes are more common overall.

According to Eurostat, Italy has the biggest problem with overcrowding among larger European countries, with more than 30 percent of all families in overcrowded living conditions.

The European average is 18.3 percent, while in France it drops to 8.2 percent, in Germany to 6.3 percent and Spain to five percent.

In the UK just 4.8 percent.of the population live in overcrowded conditions.

Source: Eurostat

The only EU countries with a bigger overcrowding problem are Greece, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, Latvia, and Slovakia.

And Italy's overcrowding problem is getting worse, as the figure has increased consistently since 2010, when it was 24.3 percent.

Meanwhile, 15 percent of the Italian population were found to live in homes deemed larger than necessary.

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