House prices in Porto and Lisbon keep escalating, registering a 25% and 23% year-on-year rise
Although Lisbon is the most expensive city in the country, with a cost of €2,753 per square meter, it was in Porto that we witnessed the highest year-on-year increase rate, at 24.7%.
House prices in Portugal keep escalating, instead of slowing down. During the second quarter of the year, the average price per square meter in Portugal was €969, which accounts for an 8% year-on-year increase. Porto is the city where prices increased the most, but Lisbon still stands as the most expensive city of all in the country. Buying an apartment or a house in the capital of Portugal costs, on average, three times more than in any other Portuguese city.
The data was released this Tuesday by the National Statistics Office (INE), which analyses the median value of the housing selling prices at the national level. As witnessed in the previous quarters of the year, the prices escalated between April and June this year. During this period, the average price reached €969 in Portugal, which represents an increase of 2% in comparison to the previous quarter, and an 8.15% increase in comparison to the second quarter of 2017.
If we only take into account the sales of newly built properties, the median house price in Portugal stood at €1,084 per square meter, while in terms of the already existing properties, the prices lower to €949 per square meter.
In total, there are 38 municipalities in which the prices are above the median national value, and these are concentrated mostly in the Algarve region and the Metropolitan Area of Lisbon. The capital is still standing as the most expensive area of the country: the median value of a house in Lisbon is €2,753 per square meter, which accounts for an increase of 6.6% in comparison to the first quarter and an increase of 23% in comparison to last year’s values.
However, prices in the capital city can go way above the median value: for instance, the borough of Santo António, the most expensive in Lisboa, reached a median value of €4,105, while in the borough of Misericórdia the median value reached €3,984.
The city registering the highest increase rates was Porto, with the median value in the city, in the second quarter, increasing by 24.7% to €1,460 per square meter. In the boroughs of Aldoar, Foz do Douro and Nevogilde, the most expensive parish in the city, the median value was €2,142.
In Algarve, the median value was €1,465 per square meter; Loulé (€1,846), Lagos (€1,744), Albufeira (€1,631) and Tavira (€1,594) were the boroughs with the highest prices in the southern region of Portugal.
On the contrary, the prices in the Centre are the lowest in the country. The cities of Pampilhosa da Serra (€130), Figueira de Castelo Rodrigo (€152) and Penamacor (€166) are the ones presenting the lowest median values, with a price that doesn’t even reach the €200 per square meter line.
Prices have increased in 74% (or 277) of the country’s municipalities, even if at different increase rates.