Press Releases

Indices of residential property prices: Q4 2016

09/02/2017 - Press Releases

According to data collected from credit institutions,(1) nominal apartment prices are estimated to have declined marginally on average by 0.6% year-on-year in the fourth quarter of 2016, whilst in 2016 as a whole apartment prices fell on average by 2.2%, compared with an average drop of 5.1% in 2015.

Indices of apartment prices by age and geographical area

More specifically, in the fourth quarter of 2016, prices of “new” apartments (up to 5 years old) dropped by 0.9% year-on-year and prices of “old” apartments (over 5 years old) fell by 0.4% year-on-year. For the whole of 2016, prices of “new” apartments declined by 2.9%, against a decline of 5.6% in 2015, whereas “old” apartment prices declined by 1.8% in 2016, against a drop of 4.7% in 2015.
 
According to data broken down by geographical area, in the fourth quarter of 2016 apartment prices are estimated to have marginally declined year-on-year in Athens, Thessaloniki and other cities by 0.4%, 0.5% and 0.6%, respectively, and in other areas of Greece by 1.1%. For the whole of 2016, apartment prices dropped on average by 1.7%, 3.3%, 2.2% and 2.9%, respectively, in the above-mentioned areas. Finally, as regards all urban areas of the country, in the fourth quarter of 2016 apartment prices marginally declined by 0.5% year-on-year, whereas for the whole of 2016 the average annual decline was 2.2%.

Detailed tables on house prices by geographical area and with a distinction between “new” and “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 website under “Real Estate Market Analysis” section.

INDICES OF APARTMENT PRICES (1)
	2015	2016*	2015	2016 *
			Q4	Q1*	Q2*	Q3*	Q4*
Ι. Overall
Price index (2007=100)	61.06	59.69	59.95	60.24	59.67	59.26	59.59
(%) change over previous year	-5.1	-2.2	-5.1	-4.2	-2.5	-1.5	-0.6
II. BY AGE
1.  New (up to 5 years old)
Price index (2007=100)	63.04	61.24	61.78	61.78	61.37	60.61	61.20
(%) change over previous year	-5.6	-2.9	-5.7	-5.2	-3.1	-2.0	-0.9
2.  Old (over 5 years old)
Price index (2007=100)	59.83	58.72	58.81	59.28	58.61	58.42	58.58
(%) change over previous year	-4.7	-1.8	-4.7	-3.6	-2.2	-1.2	-0.4
ΙΙΙ. BY GEOGRAPHICAL AREA
1.  Athens
Price index (2007=100)	57.88	56.90	57.02	57.35	56.89	56.52	56.82
(%) change over previous year	-5.3	-1.7	-5.0	-3.5	-1.7	-1.2	-0.4
2.  Thessaloniki
Price index (2007=100)	57.25	55.34	55.53	55.96	55.11	55.03	55.25
(%) change over previous year	-5.4	-3.3	-5.7	-5.8	-5.1	-1.7	-0.5
3.  Other cities
Price index (2007=100)	63.85	62.45	62.61	63.00	62.44	62.13	62.24
(%) change over previous year	-4.9	-2.2	-5.0	-4.1	-2.5	-1.4	-0.6
4.  Other areas of Greece
Price index (2007=100)	66.55	64.62	65.29	65.33	64.66	63.92	64.55
(%) change over previous year	-4.6	-2.9	-5.2	-5.1	-3.0	-2.2	-1.1
5.  Urban areas (total)
Price index (1997=100)	154.96	151.50	152.06	152.80	151.58	150.25	151.36
(%) change over previous year	-5.1	-2.2	-5.3	-4.4	-2.5	-1.5	-0.5

* Provisional data.
Source: Bank of Greece.

(1) Bank of Greece indices of residential property prices are based on detailed data of all credit institutions operating in Greece reported to the Real Estate Market Analysis Section as from 2009, under Bank of Greece Governor’s Act 2610/31.10.2008. These data include banks’ appraisals of the current market value and qualitative characteristics of residential property. A total of 676.4 thousand appraisals were reported to the Bank of Greece by end-January 2017 (66.3% concerning apartments, 19.2% houses, 6.1% maisonettes, 6.1% building plots and 2.3% other types of property).