Portugal recorded the strongest annual rise in real house prices among the 57 economies tracked by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in the first quarter of 2026. Prices were 15.2 percent higher than a year earlier in inflation-adjusted terms. North Macedonia followed at 12.5 percent and Bulgaria at 10.8 percent.
The comparison matters more than the ranking. Global real house prices fell 1.2 percent year-on-year in the first quarter, a steeper decline than the 0.5 percent drop in the final quarter of 2025. On a nominal basis, before inflation, global prices rose 1.7 percent. Advanced economies fell 0.2 percent in real terms and emerging markets fell 2 percent. Prices dropped 7 percent in both China and Canada, and 2 percent in both the United States and the United Kingdom.
Europe held up better than the global average: the euro area rose 2.6 percent in real terms, with Spain up 10 percent and Italy up 4 percent. Portugal’s 15.2 percent sits well above even that.
A second data set, on a different basis, points the same way. Property portal idealista put Portugal’s median asking price at €3,207 per square metre at the end of August, 7.5 percent higher than a year earlier — though almost unchanged from July, which The Portugal News reads as a possible loss of momentum. Faro, in the Algarve, recorded an 18.3 percent annual increase in August, the largest among Portugal’s district and autonomous-region capitals. Asking prices and transacted residential property prices are not directly comparable.
On supply, the government has cut VAT on qualifying construction to 6 percent and introduced measures intended to speed up planning and licensing. The Portugal News notes those changes will not produce thousands of new homes quickly, since construction timelines, land availability and labour costs all bear on how fast new properties reach buyers.
