House prices in Malta have risen by 3.9% in the first quarter of the year, among the highest house price increases in Europe, a Eurostat survey showed last week.

Among the Member States for which data are available, the highest annual increases in house prices in the first quarter of 2013 were recorded in Estonia (+7.7%), Latvia (+7.2%), Luxembourg (+4.3%) and Sweden (+4.1%), and the largest falls in Spain (-12.8%), Hungary (-9.3%), Portugal (-7.3%) and the Netherlands (-7.2%).

The highest quarterly increases in the first quarter of 2013 were recorded in Romania (+4.3%), Estonia (+3.1%), Latvia and Slovakia (both +2.3%), and the largest falls in Spain (-5.1%), Cyprus (-4.8%), Hungary (-3.3%) and Portugal (-3.2%).

House prices, as measured by the House Price Index, fell by 2.2% in the euro area and by 1.4% in the EU in the first quarter of 2013 compared with the same quarter of the previous year, the survey showed.