Home ownership rates are dropping rapidly, new data indicates
Number of households renting their home has doubled in five years
Editorial note October 19, 2025: Following publication, the NSO clarified that data for 2024 and 2023 cannot be compared to prior years. Read a more detailed explanation here.
Home ownership rates are falling rapidly while the number of households renting their home has doubled in five years.
Two out of every three households – 66.4 per cent - owned their home in 2024, data released by the National Statistics Office on Monday indicated. That was down 5.7 percentage points in just a year. In 2021, home ownership rates stood at 78.1 per cent.
By contrast, the rental market continued to grow at a rapid rate: just under 30 per cent of all households - more than 68,000 in total - rented their home in 2024, compared to just 16.6 per cent, or 34,286, five years ago.
The massive increase in households renting their home coincides with a massive population boom fuelled by the immigration of overseas workers.
Malta's foreign population increased by roughly 50 per cent between 2020 and 2024, NSO data indicates, rising by more than 50,000 people.
The share of households renting their primary residence doubled.
And while renting remains something done predominantly by tenants with no children, the balance is rapidly shifting.
In 2024, 27.3 per cent of households with children lived in a rental property, while 29.2 per cent of such households were homeowners. By contrast, in 2021 just 10.2 per cent of families with children rented their home and 34.6 per cent of them were homeowners.
The shift in household property patterns means that for the first time in recorded history, less than half of all households live in a property they own outright, with no debt.
The share of homeowning households with no money owed for their property fell to 48.1 per cent in 2024, the data showed. In 2021, 57 per cent fully owned their home. In 2011 – the first year the data was recorded – 78 per cent of households fully owned their home.
While property ownership is dwindling, those who are on the property ladder say they are well able to afford it: the percentage of households that said housing payments were ‘no burden at all’ rose to 24.9 per cent, while there were slight declines in the number of families that described those payments as a ‘slight burden’ or ‘heavy burden’.
Households that have gotten onto the property ladder are increasingly likely to own an apartment or maisonette rather than a terraced or semi-detached house. Apartments and maisonettes accounted for 65.7 per cent of properties. In 2021, they made up 59.5 per cent of the housing stock.
The share of households living in overcrowded conditions almost doubled to reach 4.4 per cent – a significant increase from the 2.4 per cent reported in 2023.
The NSO data, provided as part of its annual European Statistics on Income and Living Conditions survey, also reveals that pollution and noise continue to be the biggest problems reported by residents.
A total of 37.6 per cent of households cited pollution, grime and other environmental problems as the main problem in their dwelling (up from 34.7 per cent the previous year), with 34 per cent saying noise from neighbours or the street was their biggest concern (up from 31.3 per cent).
Both those concerns have ranked at the top of households' major concerns since data started being collected.