House price rises slow down in the most populous municipalities | Housing

House prices in Portugal rose again at the end of last year, although there was some slowdown compared to the previous quarter in most of the country’s most populous municipalities.

According to local housing price statistics, released this Tuesday by the National Statistics Institute (INE), in the last quarter of 2023, the median house price rose 7.9% compared to the same quarter of 2022, and reached 1619 euros per square meter (compared to 1500 euros in the fourth quarter of the previous year). It recorded, however, a year-on-year rate of change lower than the 10% seen in the third quarter.

Overall, this is a drop of 1.3% compared to the median price of the third quarter of 2023 (1,641 euros per square meter) and a reversal of the growth trend “which has been observed since the fourth quarter of 2022”, he points out. the INE.

“The median housing price increased, compared to the same period in 2022, in 23 of the 26 NUTS III sub-regions, with the West standing out with the highest growth (16.7%)”, to 1530 euros per square meter.

Of the 26 regions analyzed by INE, the Douro sub-region recorded the largest year-on-year decrease in median prices, of 15%, to 521 euros per square meter. As in previous quarters, Alto Alentejo recorded the lowest median sales price (520 euros per square meter), while Greater Lisbon was at the top: 2728 euros per square meter.

All municipalities with more than one hundred thousand inhabitants in Greater Lisbon, the Setúbal peninsula and the Porto Metropolitan Area, with the exception of Santa Maria da Feira and Gondomar, recorded median housing prices higher than the national value (1619 euros/m2) in the fourth quarter .

Among these, Cascais (4176 euros/m2), Lisbon (4086 euros/m2) and Oeiras (3096 euros/m2) stand out. The median price in the municipality of Porto was 2833 euros per square meter. Of this set of 17 municipalities, eight presented year-on-year rates of change higher than the national rate of change (7.9%), highlighting, with rates higher than 10%, Cascais (15.0%), Vila Nova de Gaia (13 .5%), Maia (13.3%), Matosinhos and Seixal (both with 11.7%). Oeiras was the only municipality where the median house price fell compared to the same quarter last year (2.8% less).

Even so, INE highlights that house prices decelerated quarterly in 18 of the 24 municipalities with more than one hundred thousand inhabitants, including the nine municipalities that make up Greater Lisbon (Amadora, Cascais, Lisbon, Loures, Mafra, Odivelas, Oeiras , Sintra and Vila Franca de Xira).

From the third to the fourth quarter, the year-on-year rate of change increased in six of the most populous municipalities, with the biggest changes being recorded in Maia (plus 7.8 percentage points) and Vila Nova de Famalicão (plus 6.5 pp). In the opposite direction, prices in the municipality of Porto fell by 11.9 pp and in Lisbon, by 5.7 pp. The biggest drop at national level among the most populous municipalities was seen in Funchal (19.6 pp).

Considering the prices of sales carried out in the 12 months between January and December 2023, the median price of family accommodation in Portugal reached 1611 euros/m2, which represents an increase of 2% compared to the year ended in the previous quarter and 8.6% compared to the year ended in the same quarter of the previous year.

The median housing price remained above the national value in the sub-regions of Greater Lisbon (2740 euros/m2), Algarve (2613 euros/m2), Setúbal peninsula (1901 euros/m2), Autonomous Region of Madeira (1889 euros/m2) and Porto Metropolitan Area (1800 euros/m2).

In total, over the twelve-month period, 50 municipalities presented median prices higher than the national value. This was what happened in the nine municipalities of Greater Lisbon, in 14 of the 16 municipalities in the Algarve, in eight of the nine municipalities on the Setúbal peninsula and in seven of the 17 municipalities in the Porto Metropolitan Area.

Lisbon continues to have the highest prices (4167 euros/m2) and there were values ​​above three thousand euros per square meter in Cascais (3976 euros/m2), Loulé (3269 euros/m2), Lagos (3182 euros/m2 ), Vila do Bispo (3162 euros/m2) and Oeiras (3158 euros/m2).

INE points out that in the Algarve and Greater Lisbon there are price differentials between municipalities that can exceed two thousand euros per square meter.