In the second quarter of 2020 the House Price Index increased by 3.1% compared with the previous quarter and by 3.4% compared with the same quarter of the previous year (it was +1.7% in the first quarter).
The increase on annual basis of the House Price Index, was due to either the prices of new dwellings (+2.7%) or those of existing dwellings (+3.7%), both of them accelerating in comparison with the previous quarter (they were +1.0% and +1.9% respectively).
The increase of the House Price Index occured in a context of sharp contraction in sales volumes (it was -27.2% the rate of change on annual basis registered for the residential sector in the second quarter of 2020 by the Observatory of Real Estate Market belonging to Tax Office).
The strong growth in prices of residential property consolidated the trend started in the second half of 2019 and it was referred to contracts signed between April and June but whose conditions were mostly established before the lockdown.
The drastic drop in volumes of sales involved the first part of the quarter and it was largely reabsorbed in June, without prefiguring a generalized and persistent decline of the demand such as to influence the short term evolution of prices.
The increase on quarterly basis in the House Price Index (+3.1%) was due both to the prices of new dwellings and to those of existing dwellings, that increased by 2.0% and by +3.3% respectively.
The increase of the House Price Index on annual basis involved all geographical areas. In North-West and North-East it showed wide increases (+5.5% and +4.1% respectively) followed by South and Islands (+2.3%), whereas Center recorded a lower growth rate (+0.9%).
