Press Releases

Indices of residential property prices: Q1 2016

19/05/2016 - Press Releases

According to data collected from credit institutions,(1) nominal apartment prices are estimated to have declined on average by 5.0% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2016. According to revised data, the average annual rate of change was -5.0% in 2015 (Q1: -4.1%, Q2: -4.9%, Q3: -5.8% and Q4: -5.3%), compared with -7.5% in 2014.

Indices of apartment prices by age and geographical area

More specifically, in the first quarter of 2016 the prices of “new” apartments, i.e. up to 5 years old, dropped by 5.6% year-on-year and the prices of “old” apartments, i.e. over 5 years old, fell by 4.6% year-on-year. According to revised data, the prices of “new” apartments declined by 5.5% on average in 2015, against a decline of 6.5% in 2014, whereas “old” apartment prices declined by 4.7% in 2015, against a drop of 8.1% in 2014.

According to data broken down by geographical area, in the first quarter of 2016 apartment prices are estimated to have declined year-on-year by 4.1% in Athens, 6.4% in Thessaloniki, 6.1% in other cities and 5.2% in other areas of Greece. For the whole of 2015, based on revised data, apartment prices dropped on average by 5.1%, 5.3%, 5.3% and 4.4% respectively in the above-mentioned areas. Finally, as regards all urban areas of the country, in the first quarter of 2016 apartment prices declined by 5.3% year-on-year, whereas for the whole of 2015 the average annual decline was 5.0%, against 8.0% in 2014 (the apartment price index for urban areas, according to Law 4254/2014, 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” (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 under “Real Estate Market Analysis”.

INDICES OF APARTMENT PRICES (1)
	2014	2015*	2015 *				2016 *
			Q1	Q2*	Q3*	Q4*	Q1*
Ι. Overall
Price index (2007=100)	64.31	61.09	62.89	61.26	60.34	59.86	59.72
(%) change over previous year	-7.5	-5.0	-4.1	-4.9	-5.8	-5.3	-5.0
II. BY AGE
1.  New (up to 5 years old)
Price index (2007=100)	66.75	63.08	65.18	63.30	62.06	61.78	61.50
(%) change over previous year	-6.5	-5.5	-4.3	-5.8	-6.3	-5.7	-5.6
2.  Old (over 5 years old)
Price index (2007=100)	62.78	59.85	61.47	59.99	59.27	58.66	58.62
(%) change over previous year	-8.1	-4.7	-4.0	-4.3	-5.4	-5.0	-4.6
ΙΙΙ. BY GEOGRAPHICAL AREA
1.  Athens
Price index (2007=100)	61.12	57.99	59.41	57.95	57.44	57.17	56.98
(%) change over previous year	-9.4	-5.1	-5.1	-4.6	-6.0	-4.8	-4.1
2.  Thessaloniki
Price index (2007=100)	60.48	57.29	59.43	58.07	56.04	55.62	55.64
(%) change over previous year	-6.6	-5.3	-4.6	-5.1	-5.8	-5.6	-6.4
3.  Other cities
Price index (2007=100)	67.17	63.61	65.69	63.99	62.86	61.91	61.67
(%) change over previous year	-6.6	-5.3	-3.4	-5.8	-5.9	-6.1	-6.1
4.  Other areas of Greece
Price index (2007=100)	69.74	66.66	68.86	66.84	65.72	65.24	65.25
(%) change over previous year	-4.9	-4.4	-2.8	-4.4	-5.1	-5.3	-5.2
5.  Urban areas (total)
Price index (1997=100)	163.28	155.07	159.77	155.69	152.98	151.85	151.32
(%) change over previous year	-8.0	-5.0	-4.1	-4.9	-5.7	-5.4	-5.3

* 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 664.7 thousand appraisals were reported to the Bank of Greece by end-April 2016 (66.4% concerning apartments, 19.2% houses, 6.1% maisonettes, 6.1% building plots and 2.2% other types of property).