House prices increased by 5% in Europe

The FINANCIAL — In the second quarter of 2020, marked by COVID-19 containment measures in most Member States, house prices, as measured by the House Price Index, rose by 5.0% in the euro area and by 5.2% in the EU compared with the same quarter of the previous year. In the first quarter 2020 house prices rose by 5.1% and 5.6% respectively. These figures come from Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union.

Compared with the first quarter of 2020, house prices rose by 1.7% in the euro area and 1.5% in the EU in the second quarter of 2020.

House price developments in the EU Member States

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Among the Member States for which data are available, the highest annual increases in house prices in the second quarter of 2020 were recorded in Luxembourg (+13.3%), Poland (+10.9%) and Slovakia (+9.7%), while prices fell in Hungary (-5.6%, see note under the table) and Cyprus (-2.9%). Compared with the previous quarter, the highest increases were recorded in Luxembourg (+4.4%), Italy (+3.1%) and Austria (+2.5%), while decreases were observed in Hungary (-7.4%, see note under the table), Estonia (-5.8%), Latvia (-2.3%), Bulgaria (-1.1%) and Ireland (-0.1%).

Geographical information

The euro area (EA19) consists of Belgium, Germany, Estonia, Ireland, Greece, Spain, France, Italy, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Austria, Portugal, Slovenia, Slovakia and Finland. The European Union (EU27) includes Belgium, Bulgaria, Czechia, Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Ireland, Greece, Spain, France, Croatia, Italy, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Hungary, Malta, the Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Finland and Sweden.

Methods and definitions

The House Price Index (HPI) measures the price changes of all residential properties purchased by households (flats, detached houses, terraced houses, etc.), both newly built and existing, independently of their final use and independently of their previous owners. The Member States’ HPIs are compiled by the National Statistical Institutes. The euro area and the EU aggregate HPIs are compiled by Eurostat. HPIs are computed as annually chained indices with weights being updated each year. The European HPI aggregates are currently calculated as weighted averages of the national HPIs using as weights the GDP at market prices (expressed in millions Purchasing Power Standards – PPS) of the countries concerned.