Real estate prices in the euro area rose at the end of last year

Real estate prices in the euro area continued to rise in the last quarter of last year, reaching a growth rate of more than 5%. This was pointed out on Thursday by data published by the statistical office of the European Union Eurostat, according to which it is the most significant growth rate of real estate prices in the countries of the monetary union in the last 14 years. According to Eurostat, real estate prices in the euro area rose by 5.4% in the fourth quarter of 2020 compared with the same period of the previous year. In the third quarter, prices increased by 4.9% year-on-year. The growth rate of prices in the last quarter of last year was the strongest since the fourth quarter of 2006. Acceleration of the growth of house and apartment prices was also recorded by the wider European Union. Growth reached 5.7% year on year in the last quarter, compared with 5.3% in the third quarter. In a quarter-on-quarter comparison, house prices in the euro area rose by 1.4%. In the case of the entire European Union, price growth reached 1.3%. Of the individual EU countries for which data are available, house and apartment prices rose the most year on year in the fourth quarter, with Luxembourg growing at 16.7%. The second highest growth was recorded in Denmark (9.8%) and the third fastest growth was recorded in Lithuania, where it reached 9.4%. In a quarter-on-quarter comparison, real estate prices rose the most in Cyprus and Luxembourg. In both countries they increased by 4.7%. It was followed by Lithuania with growth of 3.9% and Estonia, where real estate prices increased by 3.8% compared to the third quarter. Only Spain (-0.8%) and Hungary (-0.7%, preliminary data) recorded a decrease in real estate prices.