The dream of owning your own home

Where building plots are still affordable in Austria

(Bild: Krone KREATIV/stock.adobe.com)

Most Austrians still dream of a pretty detached house in the countryside. The first step towards realizing this dream is buying a plot of land. Whether you have a chance of acquiring a suitable plot of land often depends on where you plan to live.

If you want to buy a building plot of 500 square meters in Kitzbühel, you have to put down an average gross salary of 29 years and one month. In Jennersdorf, this building plot is paid off after just four months and in Nikitsch, also in Burgenland, in around one month, according to the conclusion of the latest OGM purchasing power study. The regional differences in income have already been taken into account.

The average price paid for a square meter of building land in Kitzbühel between 2019 and 2023 was EUR 2527. In Jennersdorf in southern Burgenland, on the other hand, building plots cost 27 euros and in Nikitsch 10.2 euros.

(Bild: Krone KREATIV/stock.adobe.com, Quelle: OGM)

Outliers at the top and bottom
However, there are a number of outliers in Austria: The surrounding communities of Kitzbühel such as Kirchberg, Aurach, Reith and Oberndorf are also expensive places. Building land is also comparatively expensive in and around Vienna, Salzburg and Innsbruck, as well as in Dornbirn. But tourist hotspots such as Seefeld or Lech are not exactly cheap for house builders either.

In general, however, building plots tend to be more expensive in the west than in the east of the country. In Innsbruck, building land costs 1622 euros per square meter, in Salzburg 1392, while in Vienna it was already available for 1018 euros. Sites close to the border in Burgenland and the Waldviertel are particularly cheap. If transport links are poor, prices fall.

Regional income differences were also taken into account when calculating how many gross salaries (as of 2022) would have to be spent on building land. However, these are significantly lower than the costs for building land: in 2022, year-round employees in Kitzbühel earned an average gross salary of EUR 43,451, compared to EUR 41,898 in Jennersdorf. And in Nikitsch, the average gross annual income was 48,159 euros.