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New Housing: Construction Costs Grow by 1.5% in March

8 May 2018

Construction costs for new housing increased by 1.5% in March, while the increase in maintenance and regular housing prices accelerated by 2.3%, the INE reported today.

According to the National Statistical Institute (INE), the increase in the new housing construction cost index resulted from a year-on-year change of 2.1% in the labour cost index, 0.1 percentage point (pp) below the previous month, while the price of materials went up by 0.8%, 0.1 pp above February.

In March, the year-on-year growth in the indices for apartments and housing stood at 1.6% and 1.5%, respectively.

Regarding the growth in the regular maintenance and repair housing price index, this was due to the year-on-year increase of 1.3% in the product component (0.3% in February) and 2.5% in the services component (up 0.4 pp compared to the previous month).

When broken down by NUTS II regions, the maintenance and regular housing price index in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area in March rose by 3.5% y-o-y, higher than the growth in all other regions of continental Portugal (2.3%).

According to the National Statistics Institute (INE), all other regions were below the average for the continent, with Algarve and Alentejo registering the only decreases compared to the same month in the previous year (-0.2% and -0.1%, respectively).

Original Story: Lusa / Diário Imobiliário

Translation: Richard Turner