House prices in the European Union and the euro area in the third quarter of 2021 saw their biggest increases in over 15 years, while in Croatia their rise was close to the EU average, according to the data released by Eurostat on Friday.

In the third quarter of 2021, house prices rose by 9.2% in the EU and by 8.8% in the euro area compared with the same quarter of the previous year.

This was the highest annual increase for the euro area since 2005 when house prices started to be collected, and since the second quarter of 2007 for the EU. In the second quarter of 2021, house prices rose by 6.8% and 7.4% respectively.

Annual comparison

All EU countries except Greece, for which data was not available, recorded annual increases in house prices in the third quarter and in half of them the increases exceeded 10%.

The highest annual increases were registered in Czechia (+22.0%), Lithuania (+18.9%), Estonia (+17.3%) and the Netherlands (+16.8%), while the lowest increases were recorded in Cyprus (+2.2%) and Italy and Spain (+4.2% each).

In Croatia, house prices increased by 9.0% in the third quarter of 2021 compared with the same period of 2020, their highest increase since the start of 2020. In the second quarter they rose by 6.5%.

Quarterly comparison

Compared with the second quarter of 2021, house prices rose by 3.1% in the EU and by 3.3% in the euro area. In the second quarter, they increased by 2.7% in the EU and by 2.6% in the euro area.

The highest quarterly increases were recorded in Czechia (+7.3%), the Netherlands (+5.9%), Lithuania (+5.4%) and Ireland (+5.1%), while the lowest increases were registered in Romania (+0.1%), Finland (+0.2%) and Denmark (+0.3%).

In Croatia, house price increased by 1.7% in the third quarter of last year compared with the previous quarter, when they had risen by 3.6%.