OREANDA-NEWS. House prices, as measured by the House Price Index, rose by 3.0% in the euro area and by 4.0% in the EU in the first quarter of 2016 compared with the same quarter of the previous year. These figures come from Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union.

Compared with the fourth quarter of 2015, house prices rose by 0.4% in the euro area and by 0.7% in the EU in the first quarter of 2016.

House price developments in the EU Member States

Among the Member States for which data are available, the highest annual increases in house prices in the first quarter of 2016 were recorded in Hungary (+15.2%), Austria (+13.4%) and Sweden (+12.5%), while falls were observed in Italy and Cyprus (both -1.2%).

Compared with the previous quarter the highest increases were recorded in Hungary (+5.2%), Austria (+4.2%) and Romania (+3.3%), and the largest falls in Cyprus (-3.4%) and Malta (-2.8%).