House prices go up with sales recovery

Average house prices rose 1.5% in April compared to March, inverting a trend of house price stabilisation seen in recent months according to housing market statistics from Confidencial Imobiliário released this week.

Over the past year and a half, which saw a slowdown in the number of housing transactions, prices showed a greater resistance to increases with monthly variation rates of less than 1.0%.

In terms of the Residential Price Index like-for-like valuation rate, in April this indicator stood at 10.6% compared to 9.6% in March. In March the like-for-like increase in prices was the lowest it had been for three years, consolidating a trajectory of a loss of intensity in house price increases going from 19% to less than 10% in 18 months.

This new 1.5% increase in prices reflects a recovery in property transactions which in the accumulated period of February and Abril recovered.

According to forecasts from Confidencial Imobiliário using data in the SIR – Residential Information System, in his period 36,200 houses were transacted on mainland Portugal, an increase of 10% on the average of 33,000 homes sold per quarter in 2023, this confirming a trend of recovery in sales that had been seen in the first quarter of the year.