The Housing Price Index increased by 13.2% in the second quarter, up 0.3 percentage points (p.p.) from the previous quarter, reaching a new historical maximum in the available series.

According to the National Institute of Statistics (INE), the average annual rate of change of this index stood at 12.3% in the second quarter of 2022, accelerating 1.3 p.p. compared to the previous quarter and reaching a new maximum of the available series.

Between April and June 2022, the average annual rate of change in the prices of existing housing was higher than that observed in new housing, 13% and 10.4%, respectively, and in both cases it was the highest rate since the beginning of the INE series.

In the second quarter, the increase in prices for existing housing was 14.7% and for new housing 8.4%, with the index having risen 3.1% between the first and second quarters of this year.

Between April and June, 43,607 homes were traded for a value of 8.3 billion euros, representing increases of 4.5% and 19.5% compared to the same period of the previous year, respectively.

Foreign investment

Of this total, 87.6% (38,181 homes) were acquired in the second quarter by buyers from Portugal, totalling 7.2 billion euros (86.7% of the total), while buyers with a tax domicile outside of the national territory were responsible for 6.4% of the total number of transactions (2,783 dwellings), corresponding to 11.9% of the total value transacted.

From the first to the second quarter, the number of housing transactions increased by 0.1% (-5.1% in the previous quarter), with the growth in the number of transactions occurring only in the case of new housing (3.4%), while in existing housing there was a decrease of -0.6%.