🔨 Housing Support Score in Georgia

Housing Support in Georgia

Georgia has no social housing system in the Western European or North American sense. There is no public housing construction, no rent subsidies, and no housing vouchers. State housing support is essentially limited to programs for internally displaced persons (IDPs) and occasional disaster relief. In a country where property prices in the capital Tbilisi rose by 80–100% between 2020 and 2025, the absence of housing policy increasingly represents a social problem.

Internally Displaced Persons: The Only Real Housing Program

By far the largest state housing program targets the approximately 280,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) from Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The Ministry of Internally Displaced Persons, Labour, Health and Social Affairs manages approximately 1,700 "Collective Centers" — former hotels, schools, barracks, and administrative buildings serving as provisional accommodation since the 1990s. Living conditions in many of these Centers are precarious: multiple families share sanitary facilities, heating is unreliable, and mold is widespread.

Since 2009, a Durable Housing Solution program has been running, co-financed by the EU and the KfW: IDPs receive either a renovated apartment in a new building or a one-time payment (voucher) of 22,000–30,000 GEL toward purchasing their own property. By 2024, approximately 45,000 IDP families had been provided for — but an estimated 35,000 families remain in provisional accommodation. The program concentrates on Zugdidi, Kutaisi, and Tbilisi. In Tbilisi, the voucher amounts are now insufficient given property price developments: 30,000 GEL buys at most 15–20 m² in a peripheral district like Gldani.

Housing Market: Boom Without Regulation

The Georgian housing market is largely unregulated. There is no rent cap, no tenant protection law comparable to those in the UK's Housing Act or Australia's Residential Tenancies Acts, and no eviction protections beyond the contract term. The Georgian Civil Code regulates rental relationships only rudimentarily — a landlord can raise rent freely upon expiry of a fixed-term contract or simply not renew.

Property prices in Tbilisi have doubled since 2020: average per-square-meter prices in 2025 stand at 1,200–1,800 USD in mid-range locations (Saburtalo, Didube, Isani), rising to 2,500–4,000 USD in premium locations (Vake, Vera, Old Tbilisi). Rental prices for a 2-bedroom apartment: 1,500–2,500 GEL/month in Tbilisi, 800–1,500 GEL in Batumi, 500–900 GEL in Kutaisi. The price surge was massively accelerated by the influx of Russian migrants from 2022 onward (estimated 80,000–120,000 persons).

In rural regions, the problem presents differently: housing is cheap (houses for 10,000–30,000 GEL) but quality is often poor — missing insulation, outdated wiring, no sewer connection. The Georgian building authority has no systematic oversight of private residential construction outside the cities.

Comparison with English-Speaking Countries

In the United States, Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers assist approximately 2.3 million low-income households, and public housing serves about 1 million more. The UK's social housing sector provides approximately 4 million council and housing association homes (17% of all housing stock). Canada's National Housing Strategy committed 82 billion CAD through 2029 for affordable housing. Australia's public and community housing accommodates roughly 440,000 households. In Georgia, none of these structures exist. The state views housing as a private matter — a legacy of post-Soviet privatization in the 1990s when the entire state housing stock was transferred to residents. Today, approximately 90% of Georgians own their home (Geostat), making the homeownership rate one of the world's highest. The problem thus shifts to young families, newcomers, and low-income renters who do not benefit from the existing ownership stock.

Mortgage Market and Access

Mortgage loans are available in Georgia but expensive: interest rates run 10–14% in GEL and 6–8% in USD (National Bank of Georgia, 2025). A home purchase in Tbilisi (60 m², mid-range: approximately 100,000 USD) requires monthly payments of roughly 700–900 USD at 15-year terms with 20% down payment. For average Georgian earners (1,200–1,500 GEL net), this is unaffordable. The government launched a subsidized mortgage program for first-time buyers under 35 in 2024 (interest: 7% in GEL, 20-year term), with 3,000 loans approved so far.

Homelessness and Informal Settlements

Official statistics on homelessness are absent. The NGO "Shelter" estimates the number of homeless people in Tbilisi at 2,000–3,000. Emergency shelters are operated exclusively by civil society: the Tbilisi City Hall funds a single shelter with 60 places. During the winter of 2024/25, at least 5 homeless people died of hypothermia in Tbilisi according to media reports. Informal settlements (squatter camps) exist along railway lines and in abandoned industrial areas on the city outskirts.

Georgia provides virtually no state housing support outside IDP programs. The booming but unregulated housing market in Tbilisi and high mortgage interest rates make access to affordable housing difficult. Newcomers from Western countries benefit from the comparatively low absolute prices but should factor in the absence of tenant protection and social housing.

This article was created on April 19, 2026