House prices in the EU and euro area continued their upward trend in the second quarter of 2025, rising by 5.4 per cent and 5.1 per cent respectively, while rents in the EU increased by 3.2 per cent compared with the same quarter of 2024.

Compared with the first quarter of 2025, house prices increased by 1.6 per cent in the EU and by 1.7 per cent in the euro area, while rents rose by 0.7 per cent in the EU, Eurostat reported.

Between 2010 and the second quarter of 2025, house prices in the EU surged by 60.5 per cent and rents by 28.8 per cent, with house prices showing a more volatile pattern.

House prices saw a staggering increase between the first quarter of 2015 and the third quarter of 2022, followed by a slight drop and a period of stabilisation, before beginning to rise again in 2024.

House prices have now been increasing for six consecutive quarters, Eurostat added.

When comparing 2025 with 2010, house prices rose more than rents in 21 of the 26 EU countries for which data are available.

House prices more than tripled in Hungary, rising by 277 per cent, and in Estonia by 250 per cent.

They doubled or more than doubled in Lithuania (+202 per cent), Latvia (+162 per cent), Czechia (+155 per cent), Portugal (+141 per cent), Bulgaria (+133 per cent), Austria (+117 per cent), Luxembourg (+112 per cent), Slovakia (+105 per cent), Poland (+104 per cent) and Croatia (+102 per cent).

On the other hand, Italy was the only country where house prices decreased over this period, falling by 1 per cent.

During the same period, rents increased in 26 EU countries, with the largest rises recorded in Estonia (+218 per cent), Lithuania (+192 per cent), Hungary (+125 per cent) and Ireland (+117 per cent).

Meanwhile, Greece was the only country where rent prices fell, decreasing by 9 per cent.

Among EU member states in the second quarter of 2025, only Finland showed an annual decrease in house prices, with a drop of 1.3 per cent.

Furthermore, Eurostat reported that the highest annual increases were observed in Portugal (+17.2 per cent), Bulgaria (+15.5 per cent) and Hungary (+15.1 per cent), Eurostat noted.

Compared with the previous quarter, house prices fell in two member states, France (-0.2 per cent) and Belgium (-0.1 per cent), while the highest quarterly increases were recorded in Portugal (+4.7 per cent), Luxembourg (+4.5 per cent) and Croatia (+4.4 per cent).

Meanwhile, in Cyprus, house prices recorded a modest year-on-year increase of 1 per cent during the second quarter of 2025, according to preliminary estimates published by the Cyprus Statistical Service (Cystat).

The House Price Index for Cyprus stood at 113.99 units in the second quarter of 2025.

Compared with the first quarter of 2025, the index rose by 0.2 per cent, while the annual increase compared with the same period of 2024 was 1 per cent.

Cystat explained that the House Price Index is a quarterly indicator that measures changes in the average prices of residential dwellings across the country.