The statistical office of the European Union (Eurostat) has summed up the dynamics in the EU housing marketin 2019. According to the official data, in the 4th quarter of the preceding year, housing in the European Union grew in price by 0.8%. On a year scale, value of houses and apartments in the Member States showed an increase by 4.7%.

House prices rose by 4.2% in the euro area (EA19) and by 4.7% in the European Union (EU27) in the fourth quarter of 2019 compared with the same period in 2018.

If to compare housing prices with the data of the third quarter of 2019, in the euro area and the EU area by the end of the year, they increased almost the same — by 0.7% and 0.8%, respectively.

The statistics submitted relates to the period before COVID-19 containment measures began to be widely introduced by the European Union.

Reference

The euro area (EA19) consists of 19 countries: Belgium, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Austria, Malta, the Netherlands, Finland, Germany, Portugal, Slovakia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia Slovenia, Cyprus, France, Spain and Greece.

In addition to the 19 countries listed above, the European Union (EU27) includes 8 more countries: Hungary, Sweden, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark and Czech Republic.

Since 01/31/2020, the United Kingdom is no longer a member of the EU.

Among the EU Member States the highest annual increase in house prices in the fourth quarter of 2019 was recorded in Luxembourg — by 11.0%. Slovakia followed up by 10.9%. In Croatia prices went up by 10.0%, while just in Cyprus housing prices fell by 4.8% only.

As compared to the third quarter of 2019, the highest increases were recorded in Malta — by 3.5%. Estonia and Croatia showed growth by 2.9%, Poland — by 2.8%. During the same period, cost of residential real estate was markedly decreased in Cyprus — by 3.7%, Denmark — by 3.2% and Hungary — by 1.5%.

Photo: Envato