According to Eurostat, house prices in Cyprus rose 7.4 per cent over the second quarter of 2015 after falling 2.8 per cent during the first quarter of the year – and rose 2.4 per cent compared with the second quarter of 2014.
These Eurostat figures are at odds with the Cyprus Central Bank, which reported house prices and apartment prices falling by 0.8 per cent and 1.5 percent respectively over the second quarter – and by 4.6 percent and 6.2 percent respectively compared with the second quarter of 2014.
The RICS (Cyprus) Property Price Index for the second quarter of 2015 reported quarterly falls of 0.3 per cent in house prices and 0.4 percent in houses.
According to Eurostat, the highest quarterly increases in house prices were recorded in Cyprus (+7.4%), Austria (+6.4%), Denmark and Spain (+4.1% each), while the highest falls were observed in Romania (-1.1%), Malta (-0.3%) and Italy (-0.1%).
In the same reports, Eurostat reports that the highest annual increases in house prices in the second quarter of 2015 were recorded in Sweden (+13.0%), Hungary (+11.9%), Ireland (+10.7%) and Estonia (+10.5%), and the highest falls were observed in Latvia (-4.4%), Italy (-3.0%) and France (-2.2%).
It is known that Eurostat, the Cyprus Central Bank and RICS (Cyprus) employ different methodologies to calculate their indexes, but it is difficult to understand the wide variation.
Speaking to the Cyprus Mail, property valuator Pericles Markaris said that the difference in the findings may be related to a difference in the methodology and inclusion of transactions of homes “at prime locations” involving non-Cypriots. However, as non-Cyprus accounted for just 30.8 percent of sales in the second quarter it is hard to understand how such a small percentage could result in such a dramatic variation in the figures.
Further reading
Eurostat newsrelease 174/2015 – 8 October 2015