HOUSING : HOUSE PRICES FALL IN EU.

• Position: Brief article

House prices, as measured by the house price index (HPI(1)), fell by 2.5% in the eurozone and by 1.9% in the EU during the third quarter of 2012, compared with the same quarter of the previous year, according to estimates published by Eurostat, on 31 January.

Compared with the second quarter of 2012, house prices fell by 0.7% in the eurozone and by 0.4% in the EU during the third quarter of 2012.

The largest annual increases in house prices in the third quarter of 2012 were recorded in Estonia (+8.4%), Luxembourg (+7.1%) and Finland (+2.1%), and the largest falls in Spain (-15.2%), Ireland (-9.6%), the Netherlands (-8.7%) and Portugal (-7.7%).

The highest quarterly increases in the third quarter of 2012 were recorded in Estonia (+2.6%), Latvia (+2.3%), the United Kingdom (+1.7%) and Ireland (+1.6%), and the largest falls in Romania (-4.2%), the Netherlands (-3.9%) and Spain (-3.7%).

...