House prices up by 4.0% in the euro area
- First quarter of 2017 compared with first quarter of 2016
- House prices up by 4.0% in the euro area
- Up by 4.5% in the EU
House prices, as measured by the House Price Index, rose by 4.0% in the euro area and by 4.5% in the EU in the first quarter of 2017 compared with the same quarter of the previous year. These figures come from Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union.
Compared with the fourth quarter of 2016, house prices rose by 0.4% in the euro area and by 0.7% in the EU in the first quarter of 2017.
House price developments in the EU Member States
Among the Member States for which data are available, the highest annual increases in house prices in the first quarter of 2017 were recorded in the Czech Republic (+12.8%), Lithuania (+10.2%) and Latvia (+10.1%), while prices fell in Croatia (-0.4%) and Italy (-0.1%).
Compared with the previous quarter, the highest increases were recorded in the Czech Republic (+2.9%), Latvia (+2.8%) and Sweden (+2.5%), and the largest decreases in Malta (-5.4%), Slovakia (-2.4%) and Cyprus (-1.4%).
Geographical information
The euro area 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 includes Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Ireland, Greece, Spain, France, Croatia, Italy, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Hungary, Malta, the Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Finland, Sweden and the United Kingdom. The data refers to the euro area and EU country compositions at a specific point in time. New Member States are integrated into the aggregates using a chain index formula.
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. The figures are not seasonally adjusted. Missing country data is estimated by Eurostat using data from non-harmonised sources. These estimates are not published but are used to calculate euro area and EU aggregates.
Revisions and time table
Compared with News Release 59/2017 of 7 April 2017, the annual growth rate for the fourth quarter of 2016 has been revised from +4.1% to +4.0% for the euro area and from +4.7% to +4.6% for the EU. The quarterly growth rate has been revised from +0.8% to +0.7% for both zones.
Source: eurostat
