OLX Real Estate analysts, whose data is cited by RBC-Ukraine, calculated how many years it would take to rent a one-room apartment in various Ukrainian cities for the cumulative rental costs to equal the price of buying it. The figure ranges from 9 to 17 years depending on the region. Residents of Zhytomyr and Rivne will have to "pay off" the cost of housing the longest — around 17 years — while in Zaporizhzhia this period is only 9 years. The variation is explained by the combination of median purchase and rental prices, as well as the impact of security factors and internal migration.

City-by-city breakdown: from 17 years in Zhytomyr to 9 years in Zaporizhzhia

The leaders in maximum rental payback period are Zhytomyr and Rivne. In Zhytomyr, the median rent for a one-room apartment is 11,000 UAH per month, while buying similar housing costs 2.23 million UAH. In Rivne, rent is 12,000 UAH per month, and the purchase price is 2.45 million UAH. In both cases, cumulative rental payments only reach the price of the apartment after roughly 17 years. In second place in terms of duration are Odesa, Cherkasy and Chernivtsi, where the period is about 15 years. Next come Kropyvnytskyi, Lutsk and Sumy (around 14 years), as well as Lviv, Poltava, Ternopil, Uzhhorod and Khmelnytskyi (about 13 years). The minimum period was recorded in Zaporizhzhia — 9 years.

Why Zaporizhzhia leads in payback speed

In Zaporizhzhia, the median rent for a one-room apartment is 7,000 UAH per month, and the purchase price is 717,000 UAH. It is precisely this ratio that makes rental costs comparable to the housing price the fastest. As explained by OLX Real Estate, lower rent on its own does not mean that renting is more advantageous: the decisive factor is the ratio between the purchase price and the monthly rental payment. In cities near the front line, housing purchase prices may remain relatively low, while demand for rentals is sustained by people temporarily residing in these regions.

Expert comment: security, migration and housing affordability

Oksana Ostapchuk, head of the sales development sector at OLX Real Estate, notes that three key factors significantly affect the market: the security situation, internal migration, and the number of available apartments. It is precisely their combined impact that creates the difference in payback periods between regions. In cities where a significant portion of the population has moved to other regions, the rental market supply grows, and purchase prices are adjusted downward, which shortens the period in which rental payments "cover" the cost of housing.

Context: record rents in Uzhhorod and stable prices in Kyiv

Previously, RBC-Ukraine reported that the highest housing rental prices in Ukraine were recorded in Uzhhorod: a one-room apartment there is rented out for 22,133 UAH per month, which is 18% higher than a year earlier. At the same time, housing prices in Kyiv remain at a high level: one-room apartments cost on average around 70,000 dollars, two-room apartments — over 100,000 dollars. According to the publication, the war is not "driving down" the cost of capital real estate, making Kyiv an exception to the overall trend of regional differentiation.

Methodology and caveats

The calculations are based on median values published on the OLX Real Estate platform and reflect typical, rather than extreme, market prices. The actual payback period for a specific apartment may differ depending on the location within the city, the condition of the property, the floor, and the presence of finishing. In addition, the data do not account for additional tenant expenses (utility bills, taxes) or potential gains from reselling the housing, which is not fully reflected in the simple ratio of "rent × number of months = purchase price".