The Portuguese statistics office has released new information about the housing and construction in Portugal.
In the first quarter of 2018, the House Price Index (HPI) accelerated to 12.2%Â to the same quarter of the previous year, 1.7 percentage points (p.p.) more than in the fourth quarter of 2017 for the fifth consecutive quarter in which dwelling prices accelerated.
House sales
A total of 40,716 dwellings were traded in the first three months of 2018, 15.7% more than the number of transactions recorded for the same period in 2017. Houses sales in this period exceeded the 5.4 billion euros, 25.7% more than in the first quarter of 2017.
Lisbon area accounted for 35.7% of house sales, followed by Northern areas of Portugal. Algarve registered 9.6% of sales.
Building permits
In the 1st quarter 2018, building permits increased by 2.0% in comparison with the same period of the previous year (-1.3% in the 4th quarter 2017), corresponding to 5.1 thousand buildings.
Building permits for new constructions increased by 6.3% (+3.5% in the 4th quarter 2017) while the number of rehabilitation permits decreased by 20.7% (-12.1% in the 4th quarter 2017). Completed buildings recorded a 20.0% increase (+19.6% in the 4th quarter 2017) with a total of 3.5 thousand buildings.
Price per square meter
Housing value increased to 1,176 Euros per square meter. The average value of bank appraisals on housing reached €1,176 per square meter in May, €5 more than in the previous month. This represents a 0.4% increase in relation to April and a year-on-year growth rate of 5.9%.
Golden visas
Portugal issued 726 golden visas has been issued in 2018 for investment activities with biggest investors from China, Brazil, Turkey, Russia, South Africa. The investment flows to into real estate recorded 3.8 billion euros.
