Press Releases

Indices of residential property prices: Q3 2016

21/11/2016 - Press Releases

According to data collected from credit institutions,(1) nominal apartment prices are estimated to have declined on average by 1.5% year-on-year in the third quarter of 2016. According to revised data, the decline in the first and second quarters of 2016 was 4.3% and 2.6% respectively, while the average annual rate of decline in 2015 was 5.1%.

Indices of apartment prices by age and geographical area

More specifically, in the third quarter of 2016, the year-on-year rate of decline in prices was 2.2% for "new" apartments (up to 5 years old) and 1.0% for "old" apartments (over 5 years old). According to revised data, in 2015 as a whole the average annual rate of decline in the prices of "new" and "old" apartments was 5.6% and 4.7% respectively.

According to data broken down by geographical area, in the third quarter of 2016 apartment prices are estimated to have declined year-on-year by 0.9% in Athens, 1.4% in Thessaloniki, 1.2% in other cities and 3.0% in other areas of Greece. According to revised data, for the whole of 2015, apartment prices dropped on average by 5.3%, 5.4%, 4.9% and 4.6% respectively in the above-mentioned areas. Finally, as regards all urban areas of the country, in the third quarter of 2016 apartment prices declined by 1.5% year-on-year, while based on revised data, for 2015 as a whole, they declined at an average annual rate of 5.1% (according to Law 4254/2014, the apartment price index for urban areas is used to compute the capital gains tax on property transfers).

Detailed tables on house prices by geographical area and with a distinction between “new” and “old” apartments are published in the Bank of Greece “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 website under “Real Estate Market Analysis”.

INDICES OF APARTMENT PRICES (1)
	2014	2015*	2015 *		2016 *
			Q3	Q4*	Q1*	Q2*	Q3*
Ι. Overall
Price index (2007=100)	64.31	61.04	60.17	59.89	60.20	59.65	59.27
(%) change over previous year	-7.5	-5.1	-6.0	-5.2	-4.3	-2.6	-1.5
II. BY AGE
1.  New (up to 5 years old)
Price index (2007=100)	66.75	63.03	61.86	61.76	61.79	61.14	60.51
(%) change over previous year	-6.5	-5.6	-6.6	-5.7	-5.2	-3.5	-2.2
2.  Old (over 5 years old)
Price index (2007=100)	62.78	59.80	59.12	58.73	59.21	58.73	58.50
(%) change over previous year	-8.1	-4.7	-5.7	-4.9	-3.7	-2.0	-1.0
ΙΙΙ. BY GEOGRAPHICAL AREA
1.  Athens
Price index (2007=100)	61.12	57.87	57.18	56.98	57.31	56.84	56.67
(%) change over previous year	-9.4	-5.3	-6.5	-5.1	-3.5	-1.8	-0.9
2.  Thessaloniki
Price index (2007=100)	60.48	57.21	55.96	55.39	56.18	55.34	55.20
(%) change over previous year	-6.6	-5.4	-6.0	-6.0	-5.5	-4.7	-1.4
3.  Other cities
Price index (2007=100)	67.17	63.85	63.02	62.62	62.87	62.61	62.27
(%) change over previous year	-6.6	-4.9	-5.7	-5.0	-4.3	-2.3	-1.2
4.  Other areas of Greece
Price index (2007=100)	69.74	66.51	65.37	65.16	65.29	64.40	63.44
(%) change over previous year	-4.9	-4.6	-5.6	-5.4	-5.2	-3.4	-3.0
5.  Urban areas (total)
Price index (1997=100)	163.28	154.89	152.59	151.79	152.70	151.61	150.26
(%) change over previous year	-8.0	-5.1	-6.0	-5.4	-4.4	-2.5	-1.5

* Provisional data.
Source: Bank of Greece.

(1) Bank of Greece indices of residential property prices are based on detailed data reported to the Real Estate Market Analysis Section as from 2009, under Bank of Greece Governor’s Act 2610/31.10.2008, by all credit institutions operating in Greece. These data include banks’ appraisals of the current market value and qualitative characteristics of residential property. A total of 671.5 thousand appraisals were reported to the Bank of Greece by end-October 2016 (66.4% concerning apartments, 19.2% houses, 6.1% maisonettes, 6.1% building plots and 2.2% other types of property).