Housing prices in Portugal continue to rise, and now the country is seventh highest in the Eurozone in terms of increase in housing prices since 2010, immediately following the years of the great international recession and the onset of the debt crisis in the single currency group.
In the last nine years, Portuguese house prices increased by 16.6%. The average rise in the euro group was 3.3%, and in the world average, the increase was 15.4%, according to data from the International Payments Bank (BIP).
Data from the central bank institutions around the world, released late last week, account for developments in housing markets in advanced and emerging economies following the major international financial crisis of 2007-2009.
The developing world offers the hottest post-crisis market. At the top of the table is India, where buying a home is today, on average, 75.6% more expensive than in 2010. Still, the advanced world have noticeable increased with an average rise of 17.6%, against increases of 14%.1% in emerging economies. Canada, the USA, and Germany are countries that have risen above 30% in nearly a decade.
In the case of Portugal, there has been a recovery later than the average of other advanced economies, but since the country's housing market took off two years ago, it has maintained one of the fastest growth rates among Eurozone countries. In the group only Estonia (plus 58.7%), Latvia (plus 45.5%), Austria (38.3%), Germany (30.7%), Lithuania (29.9%) and Ireland (18, 8%) increased more than Portugal.
When it comes to the evolution of house prices, Portugal comes in a very different league than that of its usual southern partner countries, such as Spain, which suffered a severe housing crisis, Italy, Greece and France. None of these countries, counting even Slovenia and Finland, have so far emerged from the price depression.
Still, despite the strong observable dynamics in the price history of the BIP analysis, recent data on housing sales in Portugal points to a slowdown starting earlier this year. In June, Banco de Portugal also signalled a stalling increase from the second half of 2018, with lower growth in prices, transactions and new housing loans.
