House prices in the EU bloc rose 2.3% on the year in the last three months of 2014, the EU’s statistics agency Eurostat said.
The highest annual increases in house prices in the third quarter of 2014 were recorded in Ireland (15.0%), Estonia (13.2%), Latvia and the United Kingdom (both 11.7%), Sweden (10.3%) and Lithuania (10.1%), and the largest falls in Slovenia (-5.4%), Italy (-3.8%) and Romania (-2.3%).
In quarterly terms, Romanian house prices fell 0.9% in the last three months of the year, the data showed. EU prices inched up 1.1% on the quarter.
The highest quarterly increases were recorded in Ireland (6.2%), Latvia (4.9%), and Croatia (4.7%), and the largest falls in Slovenia (-1.1%), Romania and Malta (both -0.9%).
Eurostat’s House Price Index measures the price changes of all residential properties purchased by households (flats, detached houses, terraced houses, etc.), both newly built and existing, independently of their final use and independently of their previous owners.