Portugal housing prices grew almost 19 percent in 2022, the sharpest increase in 30 years. Housing prices even doubled between 2016 and 2022.
House prices in Portugal grew 18.7 percent in 2022, according to the Housing Prices Index from Confidencial Imobiliário, a Portuguese databank providing statistics on real estate transaction prices.
It is the sharpest growth in the country in the last 30 years. Only in 1991 was the year-on-year rate (18.7%) higher than the one recorded this past year.
Portuguese housing prices have been growing strongly since 2017. From 2016 to 2022, housing actually doubled in price in the country on average.
In 2017, price increases jumped at 12.8 percent compared to the 5.6 percent growth in 2016.
Only in 2020 did the double-digit growth got interrupted with a moderate 4.8 percent annual growth because of the COVID-19 pandemic. But prices registered last year already surpassed those recorded prior to the pandemic.
The highest peak observed last year was in August with a 21.1 percent growth year-on-year.
National annual statistics however hide some important nuances.
Prices grew the most during the first half of the year with a slow down during the second half. Market conditions with the raise in interest rates seem to be cooling off. The housing price rise was only 0.7 percent in November to October.
The popularity of Lisbon and Porto, the second largest city in the country where approximately one buyer in three is a foreigner, is not as strong as it used to be compared to some mid-size cities where prices rose 20 to 30 percent. People tend to move to outside the cities and, as a consequence of remote working and various lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic, move to smaller cities. However, they still remain more affordable than Lisbon and Porto.