House prices in Spain, Ireland saw largest decreases in Q3 2012 y/y, Eurostat says
European Union statistics office Eurostat released on January 31 2013 its first-ever figures on changes in house prices in the EU and the euro zone, recording a 2.5 per cent decrease in house prices in the euro zone in third quarter of 2012, year-on-year, and a 1.9 per cent decrease in the EU overall in the same period.
Eurostat said that the new “euro-indicator” was a response to demand for comparable and reliable statistics on national, euro area and EU housing markets.
“House price evolution is important for economic and monetary policy purposes, in particular monitoring of macroeconomic imbalances and of risk exposure of the financial sector. It is also relevant for households, as it measures changes in the prices of the most important component of households’ expenditure and wealth.”
Compared with the second quarter of 2012, house prices fell by 0.7 per cent in the euro area and by 0.4 per cent in the EU in the third quarter of 2012.
Among the EU member states for which data are available, the highest annual increases in house prices in the third quarter of 2012 were recorded in Estonia (+8.4 per cent), Luxembourg (+7.1 per cent) and Finland (+2.1 per cent), and the largest falls in Spain (-15.2 per cent), Ireland (-9.6 per cent), the Netherlands (-8.7 per cent) and Portugal (-7.7 per cent).
The highest quarterly increases in the third quarter of 2012 were recorded in Estonia (+2.6 per cent), Latvia (+2.3 per cent), the United Kingdom (+1.7 per cent) and Ireland (+1.6 per cent), and the largest falls in Romania (-4.2 per cent), the Netherlands (-3.9 per cent) and Spain (-3.7 per cent).
In Bulgaria, house prices decreased on an annual basis in Q3 2012 by 1.1 per cent and on a quarterly basis, the decrease in Q3 2012 was 0.1 per cent, Eurostat said.
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