Almost 30 average Bulgarian annual salaries are needed to buy an apartment in Bulgaria.

This made Bulgaria one of the most expensive countries in the European Union to buy a house, Dnevnik daily said. Denmark was the cheapest with only 5.3 average annual salaries.

Real estate website Properazzi made the calculations for Bulgaria based on an annual income of 1884 euro (almost 3800 leva) and an average apartment price of 54 570 euro, the newspaper said.

Britons who complained houses were expensive in the UK and who had been attracted by prices in Bulgaria only needed nine average annual salaries to buy a home in the UK.

Properazzi representative Yanik Laklo said that “media reported that Britons could barely afford to buy any real estate, but data showed something different. Prices really were high. But to move up the real estate ladder in the UK would be a lot easier than in many other countries, possibly only with the exception of Scandinavia and Germany.”

The Danes are followed in the ranking by the Swedes and the Fins, who can afford to buy housing against 5.4 and 5.5 average annual salaries. Most expensive in Western Europe is Spain, where 12 annual salaries are needed, which is even more than in the Czech Republic with 11.

Press in Western Europe cited the research as an example of the serious differences in real estate prices within the EU and the enormous differences in income of its citizens, the daily said.

A Ukrainian journalist commented that with the dizzying prices in Kiev, an average Ukrainian citizen would have to work more than his entire life to pay for real estate only from his salary.