The affordability of property in the Maltese Islands has been consistently in decline for the last 50 years, but the situation took a turn for the worse in the last decade. The timing suggests that one of the causes could be the sudden population spike over the same period which was seen Malta’s population by 100,000 up to 545,000.

The matter was on the agenda of a presentation delivered by UHM Voice of the Workers during its annual the Workers’ Day Conference organized recently at the Aula Magna, in Valletta.

It transpires that between 1975 and 2025, the price of property – which in this review was categorized into apartments, houses and villas from classified adverts in the Times of Malta – got gradually more expensive when compared to Malta’s wages. In this respect two benchmarks were chosen – the minimum wage and the average wage.  

The main conclusions were the following:

  • Affordability has been declining at the same rate for all properties for the last 50 years, but from 2015 prices increased at a higher rate especially villas
  • Plots of land these days are a rarity as there is much less virgin land left, and most projects involve demolition and reconstruction

When property prices were compared to minimum wage the following emerged:

  • In 2025 a flat was less affordable than a house in 1995

(The average price of a flat right now is €326,000 which is 28 times the minimum wage. In contrast the average price of a house in 1995 was €84,600 which was 17 times the minimum wage)

  • In 1975 a villa (15 times minimum wage) was almost twice as affordable as a flat in 2025 (28 times minimum wage)
  • In 2015 a flat (16 times minimum wage) was as affordable as a villa in 1975 (15 times minimum wage)
  • In 2025 a flat (28 times minimum wage) was three times less affordable than in 1995 (9.5 times minimum wage)

When property prices were compared to the average wage the following emerged:

  • A flat in 2025 (14 times the average wage) is less affordable than a house in 1995 (10 times the average wage) and even less than a villa in 1975 (12.5 times the average wage)
  • In a few years’ time a flat will be as affordable as a house in 2015 (18 times the average wage)
  • In 2025 a house (22 times average wage) is only slightly more affordable than a villa in 1995 (25 times the average wage).