House price and sales index

(prc_hpi_inx)
Reference Metadata in Euro SDMX Metadata
Structure (ESMS)
Compiling agency: Eurostat, the statistical office of
the European Union.

Eurostat metadata National metadata

Reference metadata National reference metadata
1. Contact National metadata produced by countries
2. Metadata update and released by Eurostat
3. Statistical presentation
4. Unit of measure Belgium Bulgaria
5. Reference Period
6. Institutional Mandate
Czechia Denmark
7. Confidentiality
8. Release policy
Germany Estonia
9. Frequency of dissemination
10. Accessibility and clarity
11. Quality management Ireland Spain
12. Relevance
13. Accuracy France Croatia
14. Timeliness and punctuality
15. Coherence and comparability Italy Cyprus
16. Cost and Burden
17. Data revision Latvia Lithuania
18. Statistical processing
19. Comment Luxembourg Hungary
Related Metadata
Annexes (including footnotes) Malta Netherlands

Austria Poland

Portugal Romania

Slovenia Slovakia

Finland Sweden

Iceland Norway

Switzerland United Kingdom

 Turkey

For any question on data and metadata, please contact: EUROPEAN STATISTICAL
DATA SUPPORT Download

1. Contact
1.1. Contact organisation
1.2. Contact organisation unit
1.5. Contact mail address
Top
Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union.
C4: price statistics. Purchasing power parities. Housing
statistics.
2920 Luxembourg LUXEMBOURG

2. Metadata update Top

2.1. Metadata last certified 31/08/2020
2.2. Metadata last posted 31/08/2020
2.3. Metadata last update 31/08/2020

3. Statistical presentation Top

3.1. Data description
The House Price Index (HPI) measures inflation in the residential property market. The HPI captures
price changes of all kinds of residential property purchased by households (flats, detached houses,
terraced houses, etc.), both new and existing. Only market prices are considered, self-build dwellings
are therefore excluded. The land component of the residential property is included.
These indices are the result of the work that National Statistical Institutes (NSIs) have been doing
mostly within the framework of the Owner-Occupied Housing (OOH) pilot project coordinated by
Eurostat.
HPI is available for all EU Member States (except Greece), the United Kingdom, Iceland, Norway
and Turkey. In addition to the individual country series Eurostat produces indices for the euro area
and for the EU.
For data from the first quarter of 2020, the EU HPI aggregate will no longer include the United
Kingdom data, which series will continue to be available as an individual country.
The national HPIs are produced by NSIs, while the European aggregates are computed by Eurostat,
by aggregating the national indices.
The data released quarterly on Eurostat's website include price indices themselves as well as their
rates of change compared to the same quarter of the previous year.
House Sales cover the total number and value of dwellings transactions at national level (both houses
and flats) where the purchaser is a household. House Sales indicators complement the data on the HPI
in order to offer a more comprehensive picture of the housing market. Eurostat publishes a quarterly
and annual index as well as an annual and quarterly rate of change.
3.2. Classification system
The HPI is classified according to the following categories:
H.1. Purchases of dwellings
H.1.1. Purchases of new dwellings.
H.1.2. Purchases of existing dwellings.
3.3. Coverage - sector
ESA 2010 sector S. 14 (Household sector).
HPI covers all residential properties purchased by households in the reference period.
The House Sales indexes cover the dwellings purchased by households. In few cases it covers the
dwellings purchased by all sectors; these are flagged with 'd' (definition differs).
3.4. Statistical concepts and definitions
The published data is as follows:
Annual House price index (2015 = 100) (prc_hpi_a)

Annual HPI 2015=100

Percentage change compared to the previous year.

Quarterly House price index (2015 = 100) (prc_hpi_q)

Quarterly index
Quarterly rate of change
Annual rate of change

House price index - Item weights (prc_hpi_inw)

Per thousand weights of the HPI for new and existing dwellings

House sales index of number of transactions (2015=100) - annual data ( prc_hpi_hsna)

Annual average index

Annual average rate of change

House sales index of number of transactions (2015=100) - quarterly data (prc_hpi_hsnq)

Quarterly index
Quarterly rate of change
Annual rate of change

House sales index of value of transactions (2015=100) - annual data (prc_hpi_hsva)

Annual average index

Annual average rate of change

House sales index of value of transactions (2015=100) - quarterly data prc_hpi_hsvq)

Quarterly index
Quarterly rate of change
:
 Annual rate of change

The HPI measures the price evolution of dwellings in the reference period, compared to the base
period.
Emphasis is on market prices of residential properties, non-marketed prices are ruled out from the
scope of the HPI, so self-build dwellings are excluded. All transactions are included (both cash and
mortgage).
Focus is on the measurement of price developments of all residential properties purchased by
households, independently of its final use, so dwellings bought by households for uses other than
owner-occupancy are included (for investment, e.g. to rent it out).
The target are dwelling acquisitions, independently of their previous owner; so all purchases of new
and existing dwellings are to be considered, including those existing dwellings transacted between
households.
The number and value of housing transactions covers the total annual value of dwellings transactions
at national level (both houses and flats) where the purchaser is a household. Transactions between
households are included. The transfers in dwellings due to donations and inheritances are excluded.
The value refer to the prices paid by household buyers and include both the price of land and the
price of the structure. The prices for new dwellings include the VAT for new dwellings. Other costs
related to acquisition (notary fees, registry/cadastre fees, real estate agency commission, bank fees)
are excluded.
The value index is computed from the value in national currency.
3.5. Statistical unit
Each published index or rate of change refers to the expenditure by the household sector for acquiring
residential property in the corresponding geographical entity. Expenditure includes all acquisitions of
residential property, covering transactions with other sectors and transactions that are internal to the
household sector.
3.6. Statistical population
The target statistical universe is the household expenditure for the acquisition of residential property
within the economic territories of the countries compiling the HPI. The household sector to which the
definition refers includes all individuals or groups of individuals irrespective of, in particular, the type
of area in which they live, their position in the income distribution and their nationality status. These
definitions follow the national account concepts in the European System of Accounts (ESA 2010).
HPI comprises all dwellings purchased in monetary transactions by households within the territory of
a country; those by both resident and non-resident households (i.e. 'domestic concept').
3.7. Reference area
European Union (EU), euro area (European Monetary Union), EU Member States (except Greece),
the United Kingdom, Iceland, Norway and Turkey.
3.8. Coverage - Time
HPI data on EU aggregates and euro area start in 2005. At the country level the length of the time
series is variable.
The annual index for the value of housing transactions (purchased by households) starts for most
countries in 2010. The annual index for the number of housing transactions and the quarterly indexes
for the number and value of housing transactions start for most countries in 2015.
3.9. Base period
:
HPI is a chain-linked Laspeyres-type price index published using a common index reference period
(2015=100). Starting with the release of Q1 2017 data on 19 July 2017, the reference year of the HPI
series has been changed from 2010=100 to 2015=100.
The indices for the value of housing transactions (purchased by households) have the year 2015 as
common reference period.

4. Unit of measure Top

Following units are disseminated:

Index: equal 100 in the base period. For any other period, the HPI can be reckoned of as
the amount that the buyer would have to spend on average in that given period to buy a
residential property having a value of 100 in the base period.
Percentage change on previous period and for quarterly statistics, on the same period of
the previous year (rates)

Following roundings steps are applied for the dissemination of the units:

1. Quarterly index: 1 rounding step: quarterly index provided by countries are rounded on 2
decimals (except for CZ, DE and IT: 1 decimal),
2. Annual index: 2 rounding steps: the quarterly index provided by countries are rounded
(see step 1 above) and then used to calculate the annual index which are then rounded again
on 2 decimals,
3. Percentage change: 2 rounding steps: the quarterly index provided by countries are
rounded (see step 1 above) and then used to calculate the quarterly or annual percentage
change which are then rounded on 1 decimal.

Most countries apply the same rounding steps and use the same number of decimals in their national
publications. Nevertheless, some countries may apply different rounding approaches that may lead in
some cases to a difference of +/-0.01 (for index) or +/-0.1 for % change.

5. Reference Period Top

For every quarter, the national indices are compiled by NSIs based on data for dwellings that were
transacted during that quarter in each EU Member State (except Greece), the United Kingdom,
Iceland, Norway and Turkey. The compiled quarterly indices represent the whole calendar quarter.

6. Institutional Mandate Top

6.1. Institutional Mandate - legal acts and other agreements
The basic act providing for the compilation of the House price index (HPI) and the Owner-occupied
price index (OOHPI) is the European Parliament and Council Regulation (EU) 2016/792, of 11 May
2016.
The relevant implementing act is Commission Regulation (EU) 2020/1148 of 31 July 2020.
All relevant regulations can be found in the Housing Price Statistics section on Eurostat's website
under => Legislation.
House Sales data are provided on a voluntary basis by the countries.
:
6.2. Institutional Mandate - data sharing
None.

7. Confidentiality Top
7.1. Confidentiality - policy
Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics (recital 24 and Article 20(4)) of 11 March 2009
(OJ L 87, p. 164), stipulates the need to establish common principles and guidelines ensuring the
confidentiality of data used for the production of European statistics and the access to those
confidential data with due account for technical developments and the requirements of users in a
democratic society.
7.2. Confidentiality - data treatment
According to policy rules (see point 7.1).

8. Release policy Top

8.1. Release calendar
The HPI is released on a quarterly basis, at one quarter after the reference period.
Even if for the moment there is no release calendar for house sales indicators, the annual indices of
housing transactions are mostly released in July-August of the following year after the reference
period and the quarterly indices are mostly released about 4 months after the end of each quarter.
8.2. Release calendar access
The release calendar for the HPI is published on the Eurostat website. The release dates of the Euro-
Indicators are disseminated on Euro-Indicators Release Calendar.
8.3. Release policy - user access
In line with the Community legal framework and the European Statistics Code of Practice Eurostat
disseminates European statistics on Eurostat's website (see item 10 - 'Accessibility and clarity')
respecting professional independence and in an objective, professional and transparent manner in
which all users are treated equitably. The detailed arrangements are governed by the Eurostat protocol
on impartial access to Eurostat data for users.

9. Frequency of dissemination Top

Quarterly.

10. Accessibility and clarity Top

10.1. Dissemination format - News release
News releases, available on-line.
10.2. Dissemination format - Publications
Statistics explained article, available online.
10.3. Dissemination format - online database
:
Please consult free data online
10.4. Dissemination format - microdata access
None.
10.5. Dissemination format - other
See Eurostat's Housing Price Statistics dedicated section.
10.6. Documentation on methodology
The HPI is compiled based on a common methodological framework described in the OOH/HPI
Technical Manual. The latest version of the Manual will be soon available on Eurostat's Housing
Price Statistics section.
Starting from the theoretical recommendations available in the literature, the Technical Manual
developed from the invaluable practical experiences of statistical offices participating in the OOH
project. The manual was gradually improved and extended as the project expanded its coverage to
more countries, and participants applied the recommendations from the manual and gave their
feedback. Details on the methods employed in the compilation of HPI can be found in particular in
Chapter 6 of the Technical Manual.
A more analytical, in-depth review of the methods underlined in the OOH/HPI Technical Manual, is
offered in the Handbook on Residential Property Prices Indices (RPPI). The Handbook represents the
first comprehensive overview of the conceptual and practical issues that statisticians (both in
industrialised and developing countries) should consider when compiling price indices for residential
properties. The development of the RPPI Handbook has been co-ordinated by the Statistical Office of
the European Union (Eurostat) and its electronic version is available on Eurostat's Housing Price
Statistics section, under 'Residential Property Prices Indices Handbook'.
10.7. Quality management - documentation
Not available.

11. Quality management Top

11.1. Quality assurance
Eurostat and National Statistical Institutes are working to ensure that the statistical practices used to
compile national HPI are in compliance with HPIs methodological requirements and that good
practices in the field of house price indices are being followed, according to the methodology
underlined in the Technical Manual and the RPPI Handbook.
Eurostat has developed together with the Member States a framework to assess the quality of the HPI,
where the concepts in the Technical Manual are combined with the European Statistical System
(ESS) quality dimensions. This harmonised framework aims to maintain and, where necessary,
improve current practices, taking into account the country-specific conditions.
11.2. Quality management - assessment
The quality of the HPI is assessed regularly using the quality assurance framework. Evaluations
undertaken by Eurostat in cooperation with Member States and other NSIs have revealed that the
quality of HPI can be regarded as appropriate and significantly improving over time.
Member States, Iceland, Norway and Eurostat are continuously working to maintain and improve the
quality and the comparability of the indices.
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12. Relevance Top
12.1. Relevance - User Needs
HPI has a variety of potential uses:

for assessing housing affordability over time

a measure of specific price trends
for inflation targeting
for monitoring economic imbalances and financial stability
as input for national accounts purposes
as input to economic forecasting and analysis
as input for decision making in respect of the house market

Generally, HPI can be considered suited for cross-country economic comparisons of the evolution of
house prices.
12.2. Relevance - User Satisfaction
No information.
12.3. Completeness
All EU Member States (except Greece), the United Kingdom, Iceland, Norway and Turkey deliver
House Price Indices. Indices are provided for all, existing and new dwellings by all countries that
deliver data except Iceland (no purchases of new dwellings).
The index and rate of change for the value of housing transactions is available for 20 EU Member
States, the United Kingdom, Norway and Turkey.

13. Accuracy Top

13.1. Accuracy - overall
The accuracy of source data is monitored by assessing the methodological soundness of price and
weight sources and the adherence to the methodological recommendations. There is a variety of data
sources both for weights (National Accounts data, Household Budget Survey data, Construction
Statistics, etc.) and prices (administrative data, bank (mortgage) data, construction companies, real
estate agents, etc.).
The data collection depends on the data sources used across Member States, the United Kingdom,
Iceland, Norway and Turkey. In some cases, the whole universe of transactions is used (e.g.
administrative data). In other cases, surveys are used. The type of survey and the price collection
methods are designed to ensure sufficient coverage and timeliness.
Another potential source of bias can be related to the price concept used. Among various price
concepts (transaction price, appraisal, offer price, etc.) the House Price Index produced by Member
States, Iceland and Norway generally use transactions prices, ideally measured at the first binding
contract. This is in line with the objective of the HPI which is to measure the evolution of actual
transaction prices as experienced by buyers and sellers. Nonetheless, even transaction prices (as
recorded in administrative registers, for instance) may, in some cases, be subject to bias
(underreporting). NSIs are usually assessing the possibility of this bias occurring, and when
identified, corrective measures are implemented (for example corroboration of multiple data sources,
use of expert judgement, etc.).
13.2. Sampling error
:
In cases where samples are used, HPIs are statistical estimates subject to sampling errors because
they are based on a sample of transactions, which is less than the complete universe of all purchases.
The NSIs which are responsible for the compilation of national results do not generally produce
numerical estimates of HPI sampling errors because they are difficult to quantify. Nonetheless, the
NSIs are reducing the sampling errors by using a sample of transactions that is as large as possible,
given data and resource constraints.

13.3. Non-sampling error

For the HPI non-sampling errors are generally not quantified. Eurostat and the NSIs try to reduce
non-sampling errors through continuous methodological improvements.

14. Timeliness and punctuality Top

14.1. Timeliness
The HPI is released about one quarter and one week after the end of the reference quarter, which is in
line with the target for this indicator.
14.2. Punctuality
The HPI is released every quarter at 11:00am on the day of the News Release on House Price Index
(see Eurostat's release calendar at https://ec.europa.eu/news/release-calendar).

15. Coherence and comparability Top

15.1. Comparability - geographical
There are many issues that influence the geographical comparability of House Price Indices. To
illustrate this, it should be mentioned that prior to the pilot work carried out by Eurostat and the NSIs,
the available HPIs in EU Member States came from various sources, often from outside the official
statistics. The concept underlying these particular indicators often differed, in particular with respect
to the type of underlying price data (transactions prices, appraisals values, judgements by market
experts, offer prices), the coverage of regions and of dwelling types (some of them only covering
urban areas or capital cities or only covering flats or existing dwellings) and the treatment of quality
attributes that will differ across properties for which prices have been collected over time.
A key issue for HPI is the heterogeneity of the housing market, where virtually every product
(dwelling) bought and sold is different from the next one in some respect. The quality adjustment
from one time period to the next has been a major methodological issue in compiling house price
indices, with important consequences for cross-country comparability.
All these concepts mentioned above have been tackled during the OOH project and have been
harmonised at EU level, based on a common set of accepted methods and approaches as described in
the OOH/HPI Technical Manual published by Eurostat (see section 11.1). Due to this harmonisation
process, the HPI released by Eurostat can be considered, among HPI available in EU Member States,
as most suited for cross-country comparisons.
15.2. Comparability - over time
HPI data are considered fairly comparable over time. Nonetheless, because of several improvements
in methodology, some breaks in time series exist. In such cases, if basic data allowed, back
calculations were performed and historical series were revised.
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15.3. Coherence - cross domain
There is only one set of HPI available.
15.4. Coherence - internal
HPI data are internal coherent. Higher level aggregations are derived from detailed indices according
to well-defined procedures.

16. Cost and Burden Top

No information.

17. Data revision Top

17.1. Data revision - policy
HPI series are revisable under the terms set in Commission Regulation (EC) No 1921/2001 of 28
September 2001. The published HPI data and value of housing transactions may be revised for
mistakes, new or improved information, and changes in the system of harmonised rules.
17.2. Data revision - practice
The HPI data is released quarterly, and it may include some provisional data for the latest one-two
quarters. These are usually confirmed or revised to the final figures the following quarter(s).
Value of housing transactions index is usually final, but it might be revised as a result of new data
collected and improvement of data sources/methodology.
Major revisions (usually affecting back data) occur rarely, in cases of significant data sources and
methodological improvements. They are normally released with explanatory notes.
The change of reference year caused revisions to a few previously published rates of change because
of rounding effects. Thus, rates of change for European and country aggregates calculated from the
2015=100 series can differ from the rates calculated from the 2010=100 series. See 'Summary table
of revisions' under the Housing Statistics.

18. Statistical processing Top

18.1. Source data
Data collection is carried out by National Statistical Institutes. Data sources for prices are:
administrative data sources, bank (mortgage) data, construction companies, real estate agents, etc.
Weights are usually compiled from National Account data, Household Budget Survey data,
Construction Statistics, etc.
18.2. Frequency of data collection
Quarterly.
18.3. Data collection
The data collection methods are chosen by National Statistical Institutes, depending on access to data,
exhaustiveness, data quality, cost, variables available, timeliness, etc.
The Member States' HPIs are supplied by the National Statistical Institutes; the aggregate indices for
the euro area and the EU are compiled by Eurostat.
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18.4. Data validation
Data validation is done by National Statistical Institutes; additional quality checks are carried out also
by Eurostat.
18.5. Data compilation
The HPI aggregates for the euro area and the EU are calculated by Eurostat using the national HPI
provided by the Member States.
18.6. Adjustment
No seasonal adjustments are made.
Adjustments for quality mix and quality change: As HPI aims at measuring 'pure' price changes, it
should be unaffected by changes in quality of residential properties. In the process of index
compilation, National Statistical Institutes control for variations from one quarter to the other in the
amounts of the price determining characteristics of the properties.

19. Comment Top

EU HPI data for 2019 includes the United Kingdom.
Since 2018, an aggregate for EU Member States without the UK has also been compiled.
For data from 2020 onwards, the EU aggregate will refer only to the 27 EU Member States. Data for
the United Kingdom will nevertheless remain available.
More information can be found in the 'Note to users - Dissemination of European statistics after
Brexit'.

Related metadata Top

prc_hpi_oo_esms - Owner occupied housing price index

Annexes Top
: