House prices in the EU rose on average during the last decade, but Spain was one of the few countries where they fell, reveals the EU data office Eurostat.

Spanish house prices declined by 4.5% between 2010 and 2020, whilst the EU average increased by 27%, according to Europa Press, reporting figures from Eurostat.

Spain was one of only four EU countries to register house price declines, along with Greece (-31%), Italy (-15.5%), and Cyprus (-7.7%), all countries in the EU’s southern region.

However, if you dig into the EU’s data, you see that Spain’s decline was due to steep falls in the first half of the decade, followed by big increases in the second, but not enough to lift Spain out of negative territory for the whole decade.

At the other end of the scale, house prices exploded in the teenies by 105% in Estonia, 92% in Hungary, 90.5% in Luxembourg, and 81.3% in Austria.

EU housing rental market

In the rental market Spain did a bit better at delivering returns for investors, up 4% in a decade, but nothing compared to Estonia (+137%), Lithuania (+107%) and Ireland (+62%). The EU average was +15%. The biggest declines were in Greece (-25%) and Cyprus (-4.5%).

Latest EU house price index

According to Eurostat’s latest house price index, Spanish house prices were up 1.8% year-on-year in Q3 2020, at the low end of the scale for Europe. In Luxembourg prices were up 13.6% in the same period. Once again, the weakest house price trends were mainly found in Southern Europe, with the exception of Portugal, where prices were up 7.1%.