Confidencial Imobiliário has launched a new residential price index which uses actual deal prices rather than the current habit of taking asking prices when publishing figures on Portugal’s property market.
According to the new index, the residential property market rose 1.2% last year after seven long years of decline during which prices dropped 21.8%.
"The downward trend began in October 2007, soon after the first signs of the financial crisis that began in the United States and even before the fall of Lehman Brothers," according to Ricardo Guimarães from Confidencial Imobiliário.
In 2011 the market dropped 7.8% and in 2012 a further 6.1%.
2013 was the first year in which there were some signs of stability with the prices obtained rising 0.9%, followed by the 1.2% rise in 2014.
Guimarães said that now we have had 12 months in positive territory, although it may be premature to claim the market is in full recovery, it can be stated that the trend is at least one of stability.
This Portuguese Housing Market Survey gets its data from a raft of estate agencies and promotion companies.
According to this survey, since May last year estate agents have felt “less and less negative” about actual selling prices obtained.
