Residential property price indices: 2015 Q2
04/08/2015 - Press Releases
According to data collected from credit institutions,(1) nominal apartment prices are estimated to have declined on average by 5.6% year-on-year in the second quarter of 2015. According to revised data, the respective decline in the first quarter of 2015 was 4.1%, while the average annual rate of decline in 2014 was 7.5%.
Apartment prices by age and geographical area
More specifically, the year-on-year rate of decline in prices was 7.1% for "new" apartments (i.e. up to 5 years old) and 4.7% for "old" apartments (i.e. over 5 years old) in the second quarter of 2015. According to revised data, the respective decline in the first quarter of 2015 was 4.7% for “new” apartments against 3.6% for “old” apartments, while the average annual rate of change in 2014 was -6.6% and -8.1% respectively.
According to data broken down by geographical area, apartment prices are estimated to have declined year-on-year in the second quarter of 2015 by 5.2% in Athens, 8.2% in Thessaloniki, 7.1% in other cities and 4.0% in other areas of Greece. According to revised data, the respective decline in the first quarter of 2015 was 4.4% in Athens, 5.3% in Thessaloniki, 4.8% in other cities and 2.2% in other areas of Greece, while for the whole of 2014 prices dropped on average year-on-year by 9.4%, 6.6%, 6.7% and 5.0% respectively in the above-mentioned areas. Finally, as regards all urban areas of the country, apartment prices declined by 5.9% year-on-year in the second quarter of 2015. Based on revised data, in the first quarter of 2015 apartment prices in all urban areas declined year-on-year by 4.3%, while for 2014 as a whole they declined at an average annual rate of 8.1% (the apartment price index for urban areas, according to Law 4254/2014, is used to compute the capital gains tax on property transfers).
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.
Residential property appraisals
Residential property appraisals conducted with Monetary Financial Institution intermediation for any purpose (transactions in residential property, renegotiation of existing loans, registration of a mortgage to back non-housing loans, debt transfers from one bank to another, etc.) came to 2,821 in the second quarter of 2015, down from 3,281 in the previous quarter (revised data). Year-on-year the number of residential property appraisals fell by 24.1% in the second quarter of 2015. The volume of residential property appraisals, expressed in total square metres, declined by 27.4%, while the value of residential property appraisals dropped by 31.2% year-on-year in the second quarter of 2015. According to revised data, the number of appraisals in 2014 reached 17,244, dropping substantially by 29.5% from 24,446 in 2013.
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INDICES OF APARTMENT PRICES (1)
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2014*
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2014 *
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2015 *
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Q2
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Q3*
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Q4*
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Q1*
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Q2*
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Ι. Overall
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Price index (2007=100)
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64.3
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64.4
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63.8
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63.3
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62.9
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60.8
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(%) change over previous year
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-7.5
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-8.2
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-7.2
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-5.4
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-4.1
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-5.6
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II. BY AGE
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1. New (up to 5 years old)
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Price index (2007=100)
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66.7
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67.2
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65.9
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65.5
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64.9
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62.4
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(%) change over previous year
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-6.6
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-6.4
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-6.1
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-5.5
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-4.7
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-7.1
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2. Old (over 5 years old)
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Price index (2007=100)
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62.8
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62.7
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62.5
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61.9
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61.7
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59.8
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(%) change over previous year
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-8.1
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-9.4
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-8.0
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-5.3
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-3.6
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-4.7
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ΙΙΙ. BY GEOGRAPHICAL AREA
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1. Athens
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Price index (2007=100)
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61.1
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60.8
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60.8
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60.3
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59.8
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57.6
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(%) change over previous year
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-9.4
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-10.6
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-9.5
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-6.3
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-4.4
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-5.2
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2. Thessaloniki
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Price index (2007=100)
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60.5
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61.2
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59.4
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58.9
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59.0
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56.2
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(%) change over previous year
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-6.6
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-6.5
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-5.0
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-6.1
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-5.3
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-8.2
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3. Other cities
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Price index (2007=100)
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67.1
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67.9
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66.8
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65.6
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64.8
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63.1
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(%) change over previous year
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-6.7
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-6.3
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-6.3
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-5.9
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-4.8
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-7.1
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4. Other areas of Greece
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Price index (2007=100)
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69.7
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69.9
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69.0
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69.0
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69.3
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67.1
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(%) change over previous year
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-5.0
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-6.2
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-4.6
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-2.8
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-2.2
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-4.0
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5. Urban areas (total)
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Price index (1997=100)
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163.1
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163.7
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161.4
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160.6
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159.4
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154.0
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(%) change over previous year
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-8.1
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-8.6
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-8.1
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-5.7
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-4.3
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-5.9
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* 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 655,185 appraisals were reported to the Bank of Greece by end-July 2015 (66.5% concerning apartments, 19.3% houses, 6.0% maisonettes, 6.0% building plots and 2.2% other types of property).