Press Releases

Indices of house prices and residential property transactions: Q2 2014

06/08/2014 - Press Releases

According to data collected from credit institutions, (1) nominal apartment prices are estimated to have declined on average by 7.3% year-on-year in the second quarter of 2014. According to revised data, the respective decline in the first quarter of 2014 was 8.5%, while the average annual rate of change in 2013 was -10.8%.

Apartment prices by age and geographical area

More specifically, the year-on-year rate of decline in prices was 6.1% for "new" apartments (i.e. up to 5 years old) and 8.0% for "old" apartments (i.e. over 5 years old) in the second quarter of 2014. According to revised data, the respective decline in the first quarter of 2014 was 7.8% for "new" apartments against 8.9% for "old" apartments.

According to data broken down by geographical area, apartment prices are estimated to have declined year-on-year in the second quarter of 2014 by 9.6% in Athens, 5.4% in Thessaloniki, 6.5% in other cities and 4.4% in other areas of Greece. Apartment prices in all urban areas of the country declined by 7.8% year-on-year in the second quarter of 2014.

More detailed tables on house prices by geographical area, with a distinction between “new” (up to 5 years old) and “old” (over 5 years old) apartments, are published in the “Bulletin of Conjunctural Indicators” (Tables ΙΙ.7, ΙΙ.7.1, ΙΙ.7.2 and ΙΙ.8) and are also available on the Bank of Greece’s website.

Indices of residential property transactions (appraisals) (2)

Residential property transactions (appraisals) conducted with Monetary Financial Institution intermediation for any purpose (renegotiation of existing loans, registration of a mortgage to back non-housing loans, debt transfers from one bank to another, etc.) came to 3,003 in the second quarter of 2014, down from 4,008 in the previous quarter (revised data). The year-on-year decline in the respective appraisals in the second quarter of 2014 was 41.4%. The volume of residential property appraisals, expressed in total square meters, declined by 41.7%, while the value of residential property appraisals dropped by 42.6% year-on-year in the second quarter of 2014.

 

INDICES OF APARTMENT PRICES (1)
	2012	2013*	2013 *				2014 *
			Q1	Q2	Q3*	Q4*	Q1*	Q2*
Ι. Summary
Price index (2007=100)	78.0	69.5	72.1	70.2	68.9	67.0	66.0	65.1
(%) change over previous year	-11.7	-10.8	-11.5	-12.0	-10.1	-9.5	-8.5	-7.3
II. BY AGE
1.  New (up to 5 years old)
Price index (2007=100)	80.1	71.6	74.3	71.8	70.4	69.8	68.5	67.4
(%) change over previous year	-12.1	-10.7	-10.2	-11.8	-10.8	-10.0	-7.8	-6.1
2.  Old (over 5 years old)
Price index (2007=100)	76.6	68.3	70.8	69.2	67.9	65.2	64.5	63.6
(%) change over previous year	-11.4	-10.8	-12.3	-12.1	-9.6	-9.2	-8.9	-8.0
ΙΙΙ. BY GEOGRAPHICAL AREA
1.  Athens
Price index (2007=100)	76.9	67.4	70.4	67.9	67.0	64.2	62.9	61.4
(%) change over previous year	-11.8	-12.4	-12.9	-13.2	-11.7	-11.8	-10.7	-9.6
2.  Thessaloniki
Price index (2007=100)	71.2	64.8	68.2	65.4	62.4	63.4	63.0	61.9
(%) change over previous year	-13.6	-8.9	-7.6	-10.9	-9.6	-7.6	-7.6	-5.4
3.  Other cities
Price index (2007=100)	80.3	71.8	74.0	72.5	71.2	69.6	68.2	67.8
(%) change over previous year	-10.7	-10.5	-11.3	-11.6	-10.0	-9.1	-7.8	-6.5
4.  Other areas of Greece
Price index (2007=100)	80.7	73.8	75.5	74.6	73.2	71.8	71.7	71.3
(%) change over previous year	-11.6	-8.5	-10.3	-10.4	-7.1	-6.1	-5.1	-4.4
5.  Urban areas (total)
Price index (1997=100)	199.2	177.5	184.7	179.1	175.9	170.3	167.4	165.0
(%) change over previous year	-11.8	-10.9	-11.1	-11.8	-10.5	-10.0	-9.4	-7.8
INDICES OF RESIDENTIAL PROPERTY TRANSACTIONS (APPRAISALS) WITH MONETARY FINANCIAL INSTITUTION INTERMEDIATION (2)
	2012	2013*	2013 *				2014 *
			Q1	Q2	Q3*	Q4*	Q1*	Q2*
1.  Transactions (appraisals)
Number	30,964	24,342	10,638	5,121	4,467	4,116	4,008	3,003
(%) change over previous year	-27.7	-21.4	61.3	-26.1	-22.8	-64.7	-62.3	-41.4
2.  Volume of transactions (appraisals) in square metres
Volume index (2007=100)	20.6	16.1	28.0	13.6	11.7	10.9	10.6	7.9
(%) change over previous year	-26.6	-22.1	58.3	-26.3	-24.1	-64.7	-62.1	-41.7
3.  Value of transactions (appraisals)
Value index (2007=100)	17.3	12.4	22.3	10.2	9.0	8.0	7.7	5.9
(%) change over previous year	-35.9	-28.4	38.2	-35.2	-30.2	-67.2	-65.3	-42.6

 

* Provisional data.

Source: Bank of Greece.

(1) Bank of Greece indices of residential property prices and of the number and volume of residential property transactions are based on detailed data reported to the Bank of Greece by all credit institutions operating in Greece. These data are compiled by the Real Estate Market Analysis Section of the Bank of Greece as from 2009, under Bank of Greece Governor’s Act 2610/31.10.2008, and include banks’ appraisals of the current market value and qualitative characteristics of residential property. A total of about 637,700 appraisals were reported to the Bank of Greece (by end-July 2014) (66.7% concerning apartments, 19.3% houses, 6.0% maisonettes, 5.9% building plots and 2.1% other types of property).

(2) The indices of residential property transactions are based on appraisal reports by banks’ engineers regarding the value and qualitative characteristics of residential property financed or used as collateral for loans extended by credit institutions. Part of these appraisals may not be associated with residential property transactions, but concern the renegotiation of existing loans, registration of a mortgage to back non-housing loans, debt transfers from one bank to another, etc.

(3) The recorded increase in the number of appraisals in the first quarter of 2013 reflects the decision of some major commercial banks to proceed with a reappraisal of a significant part of their residential collateral portfolios underlying their lending business.