Dwellings, Slovenia, 1 January 2015

The dwelling stock of Slovenia on 1 January 2015 consisted of 845,400 dwellings

Most dwellings (508,700, 60%) were located in one- or two-dwelling buildings. On average they had 97.1 m2 of useful floor space. The remaining 40% of dwellings (336,700) were located in three- or more-dwelling buildings and other buildings and had 55.2 m2 of useful floor space on average.

Compared to the 2011 register-based census, the dwelling stock has hardly changed, despite the fact that in 2011–2015 about 14,500 new dwellings were built. When the owners of real estate in 2014 got informative calculations of property tax, they started to edit the data about their properties in the Real Estate Register. About 5,000 dwellings, mostly in old buildings, were eliminated from the dwelling stock. Also about 10,000 dwellings were in the Real Estate Register classified as 'unsuitable for living’. These dwellings, which are mainly old or unfinished, are not included in the dwelling stock. One consequence of the elimination of old and unusable dwellings is also that the quality of the dwelling stock improves, because it contains fewer and fewer dwellings without bathrooms and toilets and without basic infrastructure (water, electricity).

Most of the dwellings (91%) were owned by natural persons; 6% were owned by the public sector and 3% were owned by other legal persons. Compared to the 2011 register-based census, there is a one percentage point increase in the share of dwellings owned by natural persons, mainly due to the lower share of dwellings owned by legal persons.

On average three persons per occupied dwelling

There were 674,500 occupied dwellings in Slovenia on 1 January 2015 with 1,995,500 inhabitants (96.7%) in almost 800,000 private households.The remaining 3.3% of population lived in collective living quarters and in other living units. Seven out of ten people were living in one- or two-dwelling buildings, the remaining three out of ten people were living in dwellings located in three- or more-dwelling buildings and other buildings. More than 162,000 people in Slovenia were living alone in the dwelling, which had on average 64 m2 of useful floor space. In most cases this was a widow, average age over 60 years.

More than 80% of occupied dwellings (547,800) were owner-occupied. 1,706,200 inhabitants were living in them in 653,300 households. The second largest share of occupied dwellings (71,500) was so-called 'user dwellings'. These are dwellings in which there is no owner among the residents, but the dwelling is also not rentable. The owners of such dwellings are mostly relatives, often parents of one of the residents. 154,100 inhabitants were living in such dwellings in 82,100 households.

One in 15 persons in Slovenia was living in a rented dwelling

There were 55,200 rented dwellings, which is 8.2% of occupied dwellings in Slovenia. About 135,200 inhabitants were living in them in 63,600 households. Most of the rented dwellings (70%) were rented on a non-profit basis. One in five rented dwellings was market rented. The average age of the tenants in market rented dwellings was 34 years. Even among the older population there were some 'market’ tenants; among them there was a high share of divorced persons. More than 80% of the rented dwellings were located in three- or more-dwelling buildings. On average 2.4 people lived in a rented dwelling. This is the same as the Slovenian average for dwellings in this kind of buildings.

Comparing those results with the 2011 register-based census, the share of owner-occupied dwellings grew from 78.0% to 81.2% on account of the decline in user-occupied dwellings (from 12.7% to 10.6%), as well as on account of the decline in tenant-occupied dwellings (from 9.3% to 8.2%). The share of owner-occupied dwellings is thus approaching the result from the 2002 Census (83.6%), which was carried out on the field and where the ownership was recorded based on the statement of occupants and not on the formal-legal status in the registers, as was the case in the register-based censuses in 2011 and 2015.

Dwellings used for holiday purposes owned or co-owned by almost 19,000 households

There were about 171,000 unoccupied dwellings in Slovenia on 1 January 2015. This means that one in five dwellings was unoccupied. Among them there were 150,700 vacant dwellings and 20,300 dwellings used for holiday purposes; the latter were predominantly (90%) owned by private individuals. More than half of unoccupied dwellings were located in old buildings (built before 1945) or were without one of the elements of basic infrastructure (toilet, bathroom, heating, electricity, water) or were used for holiday purposes. If such dwellings are excluded, we are left with 82,900 'useful' vacant dwellings. Fewer than half of these ('useful') vacant dwellings (38,100) were located in one- or two-dwelling buildings. Among unoccupied dwellings there were also about 6,000 dwellings of migrant workers, i.e. people who registered their residence in those dwellings but at the time of the census resided abroad. According to the statistical definition they don’t belong to the population of Slovenia.

The owners of the three quarters of the dwellings built after 2010 were natural persons

Of all the dwellings built in the 2005–2010 period, still about a quarter (11,100) were unoccupied on 1 January 2015; 7,100 of them were owned by natural persons and 4,000 by legal persons. About 4,100 of them were located in one- or two-dwelling buildings and 7,000 in three- or more-dwelling buildings or other buildings.

After 2010, mostly one- or two-dwelling buildings were built in Slovenia, in which 9,600 dwellings were located. In three- or more-dwelling buildings and other buildings constructed after 2010 there were approximately a quarter (4,900) of new dwellings. The owners of three-quarters of new dwellings (10,800) were natural persons. Of the total of 14,500 dwellings built after 2010, on 1 January 2015 almost half (6,700) were still unoccupied; 3,100 of them were owned by legal persons.