In the second quarter prices rose by 7.5% on an annual basis

Housing prices in Bulgaria accelerated in the second quarter of the year, posting growth of 2.8% on a quarterly basis and 7.5% on an annual basis, Investor.bg reported, citing Eurostat data.

For comparison, in the first quarter of this year, house prices in our country increased by 0.9% on a quarterly basis and 7.1% on an annual basis. However, annual house price growth slowed down compared to the fourth and third quarters of last year when it reached 8.2% and 9%, respectively.

In the second quarter, Bulgaria ranked fourth in the EU in house price growth on a quarterly basis and at seventh by annual growth.

Among the Member States for which data are available, the largest annual house price growth in the second quarter was recorded in Slovenia (13.4%), Ireland (12.6%), Portugal (11.2%) and Hungary (10.4%).

Before Bulgaria are also the Netherlands (9.3%) and Latvia (8.7%), and our country divides seventh place with the Czech Republic, which also marks an annual growth of 7.5%. An annual decline in house prices was reported in only Sweden and Italy of 1.7% and 0.2%, respectively.

Compared to the previous quarter, the largest rise in house prices was again reported in Slovenia (4.2%), followed by Malta (3.2%), Latvia and Romania (3.1%), and only Croatia recorded a decline of house prices on a quarterly basis of 0.2%.

Total house and house prices in the euro area and the EU have risen by 4.3% in the second quarter compared to the same period last year. Compared to the first quarter, prices in the euro area and the EU rose 1.4%.