In the third quarter of 2020, newly built homes were 10 percent more expensive compared to the same period the previous year. This is the largest increase in more than a year, according to figures released by the Central Bureau of Statistics and Cadastre Monday.
Current owner-occupied home prices rose slightly less quickly in the third quarter, by 8.1 percent. In total, 7,087 new homes were sold in the third quarter, an increase of 21.8 percent over the same quarter of 2019. Also in the first two quarters of 2020, more newly built homes were sold compared to the first two quarters of 2019.
Although more owner-occupied existing homes were sold in absolute terms, the growth in the number of new homes sold was stronger than the growth in the sale of existing homes.
House prices rose faster in the third quarter than the average in Europe. In that quarter, house prices in Europe were 5.2 per cent higher on average than in the same quarter of the previous year, while new and existing construction prices combined increased by 8.3 per cent. In Luxembourg, prices rose faster, by 13.6 percent, and only in Cyprus and Ireland did housing prices fall.
