Housing Construction Costs Rose to 1.7% in April

7 June 2018

Changes in housing construction costs and the regular maintenance and repair prices of new housing increased by 0.2 percentage points in April to 1.7% and 2.5%, respectively.

Year-on-year changes in housing construction costs and the price of the regular maintenance and repair of new housing increased by 0.2 percentage point in April to 1.7% and 2.5% respectively, the INE reported Thursday. According to the National Statistical Institute (INE), the year-on-year acceleration in the new housing construction cost index was driven by a 0.3 percentage point rise in the price of materials to 1.1%, while the labour costs index held steady at 2.1%.

In April, house and flat price indexes both increased by 0.1 percentage point year-on-year to 1.7% and 1.6%, respectively. The increase in the regular maintenance and repair prices of new housing index was due to the 2.5% year-on-year change in the product component (1.3% in March) and 2.3% in the services component (down 0.2 pp in relation to the previous month).

By NUTS II regions, the index of regular maintenance and repair prices in April delivered a year-on-year increase of 3.4% in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area and 2.6% in the North, higher than in all the other regions on continental Portugal (2.5%).

According to the INE, all other regions showed rates of variation below the average for the Mainland, with Alentejo registering the only decrease compared to the same month of the previous year (-0.6%).

Original Story: Observador – Agência Lusa

Translation: Richard Turner