The Housing Price Index (IPHab) in Portugal rose by 7.9 percent in the first quarter of this year, compared to the same period of last year, according to figures released by the National Statistics Institute (INE).

This increase, according to the INE, follows on “the price growth momentum since the last quarter of 2013,” and is higher by 0.3 percentage points than in the previous quarter, the highest in the available series.

“As has been happening since the last quarter of 2014, existing housing continued to show higher prices than new housing (9.2 percent and 4.2 percent, respectively),” the INE said.

In the case of existing housing, housing prices increased by 9.2 percent, the same as in the previous quarter. 

In new housing, the increase was 4.2 percent, the highest rate since the first quarter of 2016. 

In relation to the previous quarter, IPHab increased by 2.1 percent (1.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2016), bringing the number of consecutive quarters with housing price growth to eight.

In the first three months of 2017, 35,178 houses were sold, a year-on-year increase of 19.4 percent.
For the same period, sales increased by 25.9 percent year-on-year to €4.3 billion, €3.4 billion of which relates to transactions on existing housing.

By TPN/Lusa