House prices rise by a record 17.2% in Q2
House prices are rising at their fastest ever rate, but this is not slowing down the market. Nearly 43,000 houses were sold between April and June, 15% more than in the previous year.
House prices rose at their fastest ever rate in the second quarter. Despite the galloping 17.2% rise in prices, nearly 43,000 homes were sold between April and June, 15% more than in the same period last year.
Both existing and new home prices registered record growth between April and June, rising 18.3% and 14.5%, respectively, according to data released on Monday by the National Statistics Institute (INE).
This acceleration in prices is not unrelated to measures to support young people in buying homes, such as the €1.2 billion public guarantee on mortgage loans (which has since been reinforced) and the exemption from IMT (Municipal Tax on Onerous Transfers of Real Estate) — in addition to coming at a time of relief in interest rates from the European Central Bank (ECB), which facilitates access to bank credit.
Over €10 billion in transactions
Nevertheless, the record increase in house prices is not slowing down the market, with the number of homes sold rising 15.5% in the second quarter compared to the same period in 2024, to a total of 42,889 transactions — approaching the maximum of more than 45,000 homes sold in the fourth quarter of 2021.
On the other hand, for the second time in history, the market exceeded the €10 billion mark in terms of the value of homes traded in a single quarter — the first time it exceeded that mark was in the last quarter of last year.
The second quarter also confirmed the trend of strengthening the weight of domestic buyers: almost 92% of the volume of family housing transactions had buyers with tax residence in the country, up from 87% two years ago. The European Union now accounts for 3.5% and the rest of the world for 4.5% — compared to 5% and 8% respectively two years ago.
Bubble and property crisis
House prices in Portugal have been rising almost uninterruptedly over the last decade amid warnings of a property bubble in the market and an unprecedented housing supply crisis in the country that governments are slow to resolve, despite the various packages of measures launched in recent years to accelerate house building.
Last week, the government announced a €1.34 billion credit line from the European Investment Bank (EIB) to build 12,000 homes “in a short space of time” and also approved the sale of a dozen state-owned properties to make way for new housing.
