According to the New Home Construction Costs Index (NHCI), which was published today by the National Statistics Institute (INE), the price of materials and the cost of labour both rose, up 3.3% and 7.6% y-o-y, respectively.
According to the INE’s report, new housing construction costs rose by 5.1% in March, up 2.8 percentage points compared to February. In March, material prices increased by 3.3% (vs 2.8% in the previous month). Labour costs increased by 7.6% (vs 1.7% in February). The increase reflects, in large part, the base effect associated with the cost reduction seen in March 2020.
Labour costs contributed 3.1% to the year-on-year change in the New Home Construction Costs Index, while the materials component contributed 2.0%. Considering that the monthly increase of the HNCI was 1.3% in March, the cost of materials increased by 0.1% and the cost of labour by 3.1%.
The New Housing Construction Costs Index aims to measure the construction cost of residential buildings in Portugal.
