House prices have been rising for more than ten years and this is expected to continue to happen in 2024, according to a report by ECO.

Despite predicting a slowdown in demand and the pace of sales, the experts consulted by ECO do not see, on a medium-term horizon, a decline in housing prices.

Provisional data provided by JLL indicates that this year, the market will close down with 20% less homes sold, reaching 133,000 transactions (168 thousand in 2022) and with a turnover falling “around 16% ”, to 27 billion euros, compared to 32 billion last year.

But no one is pointing to a drop in prices next year. “It is natural that there will be a slowdown in growth [in 2024], but not a generalised drop in prices, because the imbalance between supply and demand continues to be high”, states Patrícia Barão, head of residential at JLL, highlighting that the “retraction ” in sales that are expected to continue in 2024, due to “rising inflation and interest rates”.

The same opinion is shared by Hugo Santos Ferreira, president of the Portuguese Association of Real Estate Developers and Investors (APPII). “House prices are not expected to fall” in 2024, even with the “slight slowdown in national and international demand”, because, according to Hugo Santos Ferreira, there is “such a scarce” supply.

The forecast of a continued rise in house prices next year is also shared by Paulo Caiado, president of the Association of Real Estate Professionals and Companies (APEMIP). Despite considering that the pace of completing the sale of a property may slow down and the number of transactions falls, “all the data points to the fact that we do not know of any significant increase in supply [in 2024], likely to have a downward impact on house prices ".

Pricing

In the second quarter of this year, according to the most recent data from INE, the housing price index in Portugal grew 8.7% compared to the same period last year, and in this period, “the prices of existing housing increased at a higher rate than of new homes, 9% and 8%, respectively”, INE further specifies.

The same upward movement is mirrored by Eurostat data, which indicate that, between 2010 and the second quarter of 2023, in Portugal, house prices rose by 93% (around 5.4% per year) and rents increased by 33% (2.3% per year).

These numbers place Portugal in seventh place among the Eurozone countries with the biggest increase in house prices since 2010 and in tenth place in the ranking of Eurozone countries with the biggest increase in income.