House prices in Cyprus decreased by -1.8% in Q1 2018 compared to the Q4 2017 but increased by 3.7% compared to Q1 2017, according to Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union. The quarterly decrease was the second largest in the EU, after Malta.
House prices, as measured by the House Price Index, rose by 4.5% in the euro area and by 4.7% in the EU in the first quarter of 2018 compared with the same quarter of the previous year. Compared with the fourth quarter of 2017, house prices rose by 0.6% in the euro area and by 0.7% in the EU in the first quarter of 2018.
Among the Member States for which data are available, the highest annual increases in house prices in the first quarter of 2018 were recorded in Latvia (+13.7%), Slovenia (+13.4%), Ireland (+12.3%) and Portugal (+12.2%), while prices fell in Sweden and Italy (both -0.4%) as well as in Finland (-0.1%). Compared with the previous quarter, the highest increases were recorded in Latvia (+7.5%), Hungary and Slovenia (both +4.4%) as well as in Portugal (+3.7%), while the largest decreases were observed in Malta (-4.7%), Cyprus (-1.8%) and Sweden (-0.8%).
