House prices, as measured by the House Price Index (HPI), fell by 2.5% in the euro area and by 1.9% in the EU in the third quarter of 2012 compared with the same quarter of the previous year, according to data published by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union.

In the case of Malta, house prices increased by 0.8% in the third quarter of 2012 compared with the same quarter in 2011. Analysed by quarters in 2012, after a 2.4% decrease in the last quarter of 2011, house prices increased by 1.7% in Q1 and by 1.2% in Q2 before the increase easing to 0.3% in Q3.

Among the member states for which data are available, the highest 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%).