Real estate prices in the European Union and the euro area in the first quarter of 2022 saw the highest increase in more than 15 years, and in Croatia their growth was above the European average, a report by the European statistical office has shown on Friday.

In the first quarter of 2022, real estate prices in the EU rose by 10.5 percent year-on-year, the largest increase since the end of 2006. At the end of 2021, they went up by 10.1 percent.

In the euro area, real estate prices rose by 9.8 percent in Q1 2022, which is the largest increase since 2005, when Eurostat started publishing data. In Q4 2021, the prices went up by 9.4 percent.

All EU member states for which data were available saw a year-on-year increase in prices in Q1 2022, and 17 of them saw a two-digit growth rate.

Real estate prices increased the most in the Czech Republic (+24.7 percent), followed by Estonia (+21 percent) and Hungary (+20.6 percent).

In Croatia, real estate prices went up by 13.5 percent y-o-y in Q1 2022. In Q4 2021, they increased by 9.1 percent y-o-y.

The increase in real estate prices was the smallest in Cyprus (+1.1 percent), followed by Finland (+4.3 percent) and Italy (+4.6 percent).

Eurostat did not have the data on Greece.

Acceleration in Croatia

In the period from January to March, price growth in the EU was stable, 2.1 percent.

In the euro area, it slightly decelerated, from 1.9 percent in the last three months of 2021, to 1.7 percent at the beginning of this year.

All members saw a quarterly increase in real estate prices, with Estonia recording the largest increase (+7.1 percent), followed by Hungary (+6.7 percent) and Bulgaria (+5.2 percent).

In Croatia, real estate prices in Q1 2022 rose by 5 percent from Q4 2021, when they went up by 2.5 percent.

The smallest quarterly increase in real estate prices was registered on Malta (+0.4 percent), followed by Cyprus (+0.5 percent) and Germany (+0.8 percent).