Housing prices in Portugal rose 19% in 2022, the biggest annual increase in 30 years
Home sales prices in Portugal (Mainland) rose 18.7% in 2022, the highest annual increase in the last 30 years, according to the Confidencial Imobiliário (CI) Residential Price Index, released this Monday.
According to those responsible for this real estate sector database, “it is necessary to go back to 1991 to find a year-on-year rate of change at the end of the year higher than that recorded in the last month of December”. It should be recalled that in 1991 there was a price increase of around 18.8%, a mark that until now “had been approximated only by the valuations observed in the two years prior to the pandemic, both situated at the level of 15.0%”, concludes the latest CI report.
2022 continued price growth
The same document also states that “the year 2022 thus continued the trajectory of strong intensification in the growth of prices observed since 2017, the year in which the 12.8% appreciation more than doubled the 5.6% recorded in 2016 The years 2018 and 2019 consolidated the trend, with year-on-year gains in December of 15.4% and 15.8%, respectively”.
It should be noted that this cycle was only interrupted in 2020 – in the middle of the pandemic -, when house sales prices ended the year with a more moderate growth, according to CI, of 4.8%. The same entity also underlined that the year 2021 “was already one of reactivation of the trend of intensifying the ascents, registering a year-on-year increase of 12.2%, in a path which 2022 came to continue”.
CI analysts note, however, that, without prejudice to the strong appreciation recorded at the end of the year, “2022 saw prices behave at two paces. In the first half of the year, more specifically until July, prices maintained a path of approximation, with successive parallel average increases of almost 2%. The second half of 2022 saw a loss of intensity, with a compression of intuitive variations, which were twice below 1%, even entering negative territory (monthly variation of -0.5% in September). It follows that, despite having reached a robust value of 18.7%, the year-on-year change recorded in December shows a contraction compared to the records of the second half of the year, when this indicator reached a continuous peak of 21.1% (in August ), and it is even the lowest since July”.