Home sales rose 14.5% in 2024 - Prices jumped 9.1%

The outlook for house sales in Portugal in 2024 was very positive. The National Statistics Institute (INE) revealed that more than 156,000 houses were purchased last year, representing an increase of 14.5% compared to the previous year. This boost can be explained by the combination of falling interest rates and new support for young people to buy a house. However, there was also a further increase in house prices, which rose by 9.1% in one year.

“In 2024, 156,325 homes were transacted, which represents an increase of 14.5% compared to 2023. The total number of transactions totaled 33.8 billion euros, 20.8% more than in the previous year” and the highest value since records began, reveals the INE bulletin published this Friday, March 21. The successive drops in interest rates on housing loans alongside the entry into force of the IMT Jovem (IMT Jovem) help to explain this increase in home purchases in our country.

Increases were observed in both the sale of new homes and the transaction of used homes, with this being more significant in existing homes (partly because there is a lack of new housing construction in the country):

• Existing homes: 124,445 existing homes (79.6% of the total) were sold in 2024, up 14.8% on the previous year. These deals generated over 24.4 billion euros (+21.1%);

• New homes: 31,880 new homes were sold last year, representing an annual increase of 13.4%, totalling 9.4 billion euros (+20%).

It was precisely in the second half of the year that there was greater dynamism in house sales in the country, with the last quarter recording 45,214 transactions, corresponding to a year-on-year increase of 32.5% and a quarterly increase of 10.5%. This was the quarter that recorded the highest number of house sales in the last three years. At the end of 2024, “the value of transacted houses amounted to 10.2 billion euros, up 41.8% compared to the same period in 2023”, writes the INE.

It was mainly families who were responsible for the overwhelming majority of house purchases recorded last year: they accounted for 86% of the total with 134,540 transactions (an annual increase of 15.2%), moving 28.7 billion euros (85% of the total). And 93.7% of these homes were sold to buyers with tax domicile in Portugal, 16.2% more than in 2023. Meanwhile, purchases of homes registered by foreigners fell by 5.9% in one year (for both residents in the European Union and outside).

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Source: Idealista