CEPI - European Association of Real Estate Professions

Today, Eurostat publishes for the first time a News Release on the evolution of house prices. This new euro-indicator replies to the demand for comparable and reliable statistics on national, euro area and EU housing markets. House price evolution is relevant for households, as it measures changes in the prices of the most important component of households' expenditure and wealth.

House prices, as measured by the House Price Index1 (HPI), fell by 2.5% in the euro area and by 1.9% in the EU in the third quarter of 2012 compared with the same quarter of the previous year, according to data published by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union.

Compared with the second quarter of 2012, house prices fell by 0.7% in the euro area and by 0.4% in the EU in the third quarter of 2012.

Among the Member States for which data are available, the highest annual increases in house prices in the third quarter of 2012 were recorded in Estonia (+8.4%), Luxembourg (+7.1%) and Finland (+2.1%), and the largest falls in Spain (-15.2%), Ireland (-9.6%), the Netherlands (-8.7%) and Portugal (-7.7%).

The highest quarterly increases in the third quarter of 2012 were recorded in Estonia (+2.6%), Latvia (+2.3%), the United Kingdom (+1.7%) and Ireland (+1.6%), and the largest falls in Romania (-4.2%), the Netherlands (-3.9%) and Spain (-3.7%).

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