According to data published today by the National Statistics Institute, the Housing Price Index (HPI) rose by 6.6% year-on-year in the second quarter of 2021, up 1.4 percentage points from the previous quarter. The price of new houses rose at a faster pace than for existing homes, by 6.9% and 6.5%, respectively.
Quarter-on-quarter, prices rose by 2.2% (1.6% in the 1st quarter of 2021). The increase in prices was more intense for new housing (3.5%) than for existing housing (1.8%). Between April and June 2021, 52,855 units were sold, an increase of 58.3% y-o-y. This increase is primarily due to the base effect, given that the year-on-year comparison focuses on the months of April to June 2020, a period with significant restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Those restraints led to the lowest number (and value) of transactions since the third quarter of 2016.
According to INE, the value of homes sold in the second quarter of 2021 reached approximately 8.6 billion euros. The figure represents an increase of 66.5% compared to the same quarter of the previous year. Of that, seven billion euros corresponds to sales of existing housing (up 70% y-o-y). At the same time, 1.6 billion euros were related to purchases of new housing (year-on-year increase of 53%). April reported the highest year-on-year growth in the period under review, 72.4%, followed by June (64.3%) and May (63.9%). Compared to the previous quarter, homes sales grew by 23.7% in the second quarter of 2021 (-8.1% in the 1st quarter of 2021). Growth in the value of new houses exceeded that of existing dwellings by 24.1% and 23.6%, respectively.
