153,292 properties were sold in Portugal last year – 420 per day – and prices rose 9.2%

The number of properties sold and the house prices hit record highs last year

9 April 2018, 12:57

Never before have so many houses been sold in Portugal, neither so many, nor at such a high price. In total, 153,292 houses were sold in 2017, 26,186 more (20.6%) than in 2016. That’s 12,700 properties per month, the equivalent of 420 per day, according to the National Statistics Institute (Instituto Nacional de Estadística or INE). Sales have grown and so have prices: they have risen by an annual average of 9.2%.

As for sales, "in 2017, 153,292 property transactions were negotiated, a number that represents an increase of 20.6% compared to 2016," reveals the INE. These transactions represented a total of 19,300 million euro, 30.6% more than in 2016. The total value of the operations is the highest it has been in the last nine years (since 2009, when the INE produced the Índice de Preços da Habitação Housing Price Index) and exceeds 2010 numbers, which was the index's record year until now.

Between October and December of last year alone, 42,445 houses were sold for 5,578,682 million euro, while in the same quarter of 2016 only 34,339 properties were sold for 4,047,495 million euro.

The truth is that buying a home is also more expensive now. House sales prices have risen by 9.2% on the annual average, a rise that is 2.1% higher than the growth already recorded in 2016. This increase, according to the INE, is more accentuated in used housing (10.4%) than in new housing (5.6%), with almost double the rate of growth.

In geographical terms, "in 2017 the two regions with the highest number of transactions were the Lisbon Metropolitan Area and the Northern Region, which accounted for 64.3% of the total number of transactions carried out, which is a new maximum", concluded the INE.