House sales in the European Union (EU) fell in 2023 compared to the previous year in 13 of the 16 member states for which data is available, with Portugal ranking seventh in the largest declines, Eurostat announced today.
Data published today by the EU’s statistical office, Eurostat, states that “in 2023, the number of housing transactions fell in 13 of the 16 EU countries for which data is available, compared to 2022”, this being “the second consecutive year in which most of the countries covered recorded falls in sales”.
As far as Portugal is concerned, the country recorded a 19.8% drop in house sales last year, after annual rises of 2.7% and 19.4% in 2022 and 2021 respectively.
In 2020, the year the covid-19 pandemic began, there was a 9.8% drop in these transactions in Portugal.
Even so, the biggest reductions in the number of home sales in 2023 were recorded in Luxembourg (-43.3%), Austria (-26.4%), Hungary and Finland (each -24.5%), while the biggest increases were seen in Cyprus (+31.0%), Poland (+3.9%) and Ireland (+0.6%).
In the previous year, 2022, 10 of the 16 countries covered recorded decreases in the number of sales, with the largest decrease occurring in Denmark (-24.8%) and the largest increase in Cyprus (+27.4%).
Eurostat recalls that in 2020, the real estate market was influenced by the outbreak of covid-19, which is why that year “there was a generalized drop in housing transactions due to the confinement measures, with only four of the 16 EU countries for which data is available recording increases in sales.”
“In 2021, meanwhile, house sales increased in 14 EU countries,” he concludes.