National Statistics Office (Malta)

Price Statistics Unit

National Statistics Office (NSO),

Lascaris, Valletta VLT 2000, Malta.

The House Price Index (HPI) is a quarterly indicator that measures the changes in the dwellings' transaction prices that households acquire on the market. Prices include land value. 

The data on the HPI is provided in the form of an overall index number comprising purchases for both newly built dwellings and existing dwellings.

The main variables in the dataset include: contract reference number, date of contract, deed type, sale price, square meterage (whenever available), property type and locality.

The data is based on harmonized definitions and concepts included in the Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2023/1470 and described in the OOH Technical Manual.

Index numbers, weights and growth rates are made available at the level of detail established by the Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2023/1470.

The main sector covered by this dataset is S.14 as per ESA 2010 (Household sector). Size classes are based on the number of transactions recorded per quarter.

The HPI covers all transactions of dwellings made by households regardless of its final use. This index thus covers not only the transactions that are new to the household sector but also all that are traded between households. However, the data available precludes distinctions between: newly built and existing dwellings; and transactions between households and any other kind of transaction.

Index figures for the purchase of dwellings are compiled on the basis of full transaction prices, which are obtained from the Capital Transfer Duty within the Inland Revenue Department.

Prices of dwellings are gathered from notarial deeds of sales data provided by administrative source. Transaction prices refer to the price paid when the final deed is signed and ownership rights are transferred. Transaction prices include the value of land. 

The HPI is a chain-linked Laspeyres-type price index. It is weighted by the value of dwelling transactions (new and existing) sector (gross concept applied, weights data include the value of land).

ESA 2010 is the main source for the compilation of weights, which is complemented by other construction statistics for the estimation of the weight for existing dwellings (e.g. building permits).

Market prices of transactions in dwelling types that are most representative of the Maltese real estate market.

The target population is the set of all transactions of apartments, maisonettes and terraced houses that are purchased by private households.

Data are available for Malta and Gozo as a whole. Data by dwelling type (apartments, maisonettes and terraced houses) or by district are available upon request.

Data reflecting dwelling transaction prices are available from the first quarter of 2005 onwards.

The HPI reference period is 2015 =100. 

Index figures with reference year 2015 are available, as well as quarterly and annual growth rates in percentage form. Weights are given as parts in 1000. For now, the House Sales indicator is not being published. In the near future, further improvements are expected in the House Sales indicator.

The compiled quarterly indices represent the whole calendar quarter. The last four quarters are always provisional due to possible late contract registrations.

The Malta Statistics Authority (MSA) Act empowers the NSO to collect, compile, extract and release official statistics related to demographic, social, environment, economic and general activities and conditions of Malta. National legislation is in line with the same EU requirements and methodology regarding the HPI.

Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2023/1470 of 17 July 2023 lays down the methodological and technical specifications in accordance with Regulation (EU) 2016/792 of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards the house price index and the owner-occupied housing price index, and amending Commission Regulation (EU) 2020/1148 (OJ L 181, 18.7.2023, p. 1–15).

Regulation (EU) 2016/792 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 May 2016 on harmonised indices of consumer prices and the house price index, and repealing Council Regulation (EC) No 2494/95.

No data sharing arrangements are in place. Internal data sharing is used for statistical purposes.

At National level:

The NSO requests information for the compilation of official statistics according to the articles of the MSA Act – Cap. 422 and the Data Protection Act – Cap. 586 of the Laws of Malta implementing the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR).

Article 40 of the MSA Act stipulates the restrictions on the use of information while Article 41 stipulates the prohibition of disclosure of information. Furthermore, Section IX of the Act (Offences and Penalties) lays down the measures to be taken in case of unlawful exercise of any officer of statistics regarding the confidentiality of data.

Since its inception, the NSO has always assured that all data collected remains confidential and that it is used for statistical purposes only according to the articles and derogations stipulated in the laws quoted above. The Office is obliged to protect the identification of data providers and refrain from divulging any data to third parties that might lead to the identification of persons or entities.

During 2009, the NSO has set up a Statistical Disclosure Committee to ensure that statistical confidentiality is observed, especially when requests for microdata are received.

Upon employment, all NSO employees are informed of the rules and duties pertaining to confidential information and its treatment. In line with stipulations of the MSA Act, before commencing work, every employee is required to take an oath of secrecy whose text is included in the same Act.

An internal policy on anonymisation and pseudo-anonymisation is in place to ascertain that adequate methods are used for the protection of data which the office collects and shares with the public in its capacity as the National Statistics Office. The policy is meant to safeguard confidentiality of both personal and business data entrusted to the NSO.  The document provides guidance for all NSO employees who process data on a daily basis as to how anonymisation and pseudo-anonymisation methods should be applied.  The policy applies to all confidential, restricted and internal information, regardless of form (paper or electronic documents, applications and databases) that is received, processed, stored and disseminated by the NSO.

At European level:

Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics (recital 24 and Article 20(4) of 11 March 2009 (OJ L 87, p. 164), stipulates the need to establish common principles and guidelines ensuring the confidentiality of data used for the production of European statistics and the access to those confidential data with due account for technical developments and the requirements of users in a democratic society.

Data are published in index format; hence confidentiality is preserved.  Indices reflect price movements aggregated by different types of dwellings. This is in line with the NSO’s Code of practice.

The release is published and disseminated at 11:00 hrs as scheduled in the advance Release Calendar. The calendar is published on the NSO website and includes a 3 month advance notice (the current month and the forthcoming two months).

All efforts are made so that the scheduled News Releases are published on the date and time announced. However, in the occurrence of unforeseen circumstances, News Releases may be deferred to a later time or to another date. In the latter instance, the NSO shall indicate clearly this deferral on the Advance Release Calendar with at least 3 working days notice. A note with the following text shall be included next to the postponed News Release 'postponed to dd/mm/yyyy'. The postponed News Release shall immediately be inserted in the new date within the Advance Release Calendar as indicated in the postponement notice. 

Release calendar 

An internal policy on dissemination is in place to govern the dissemination of official statistics in an impartial, independent and timely manner, making them available simultaneously to all users.

The NSO’s primary channel for the dissemination of official statistics is the NSO website.  Tailored requests for statistical information may also be submitted through the NSO website.

National statistical releases are issued according to the release calendar and are made available to all users simultaneously. All releases are posted on the NSO website.

Dissemination to Eurostat for indices is on a quarterly basis and weights are disseminated annually. At national level the HPI is not published. Instead at a national level there are two news releases: a) the Property Price Index (PPI) which is published annually together with annual growth rates, and b) the Residential Property Transactions which is a monthly news release.

The News Release corresponding to the Property Price Index may be found on the NSO’s website.

The News Release corresponding to Residential Property Transactions may be found on the NSO's website.

Not available.

A selected set of data indicators for the Property Price Index is available on the NSO's website.

Micro-data is not disseminated.

Not relevant.

Methodological notes are made available in a dedicated section of the News Release available on the NSO's website.

Dedicated SIMS reports are available to the public on the NSO’s metadata website including concepts related to metadata and quality: https://metadata.nso.gov.mt/reports.aspx?id=200

The NSO has developed an internal Quality Management Framework (QMF) which is built on common requirements of the ESS Code of Practice (ESS CoP).  A document was prepared to include a set of general quality guidelines spanning over all statistical domains.  Assuring methodological soundness is an integral part of the QMF, nonetheless, the document spans also on other areas related to institutional aspects.

All data are checked for completeness and consistency with statistical concepts and definitions. The compilation of the PPI follows the methodology used in the OOH and the House Price Index (HPI) regulated by Eurostat. Also, reference to the respective manual is made during the computation of such indices.

The NSO has developed an internal Quality Management Framework (QMF) which is built on common requirements of the ESS Code of Practice (ESS CoP). A document was prepared to include a set of general quality guidelines spanning over all statistical domains.  Assuring methodological soundness is an integral part of the QMF, nonetheless, the document spans also on other areas related to institutional aspects.

Every five to seven years, the NSO participates in a Peer Review exercise through which the compliance of its operations with principles of the ESS CoP is assessed by an expert team.  Peer Reviews are indeed part of the European Statistical System (ESS) strategy to implement the ESS CoP.  

The quality of the HPI is routinely reviewed using a framework that is based on the OOH technical manual and the European Statistical System (ESS) definition of quality.

The HPI responds to the needs of all users interested in the developments taking place in the property market. These include private companies, students/academics, public corporations/government entities, international organisations and private users amongst others. Currently, the HPI does not provide information related to individual regions. Whenever possible, data requests can be custom-made according to the user's needs.

The last User Satisfaction Survey was held in 2022 with the aim to collect information about key users’ satisfaction with statistical output. The NSO keeps record of the number of News Releases and publications disseminated on its website; the users to whom statistical products are provided; as well as the number of requests that are processed every year.

News Releases and tailor-made statistical outputs were assessed on account of their quality, timeliness, and on their ability to meet users’ needs.

All relevant expenditure categories defined in Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2023/1470. For the compilation of data, consistency is ensured by following both guidelines and regulations. Furthermore, data completeness is ensured for any requests received by third parties.

The HPI gives a good indication of what’s going on in the property market in relation to property prices.  

All Residential Property Price Indices (RPPI) are based on administrative sources that cover the entire population of transacted properties.

Index numbers are based on data obtained from an administrative source. It can be the case that there are inconsistencies (due to misclassification) in this data. The Prices Unit is putting its efforts in minimizing these errors.

Data are sent quarterly according to the Residential Property Price Indices (RPPI) data transmission guidelines.  There is no time lag (in days) between the end of the period to which the HPI relates to the PPI. The only difference is in the frequency of publication, and consequently, the HPI is more relevant than the PPI. The PPI is published once every year, whilst the HPI is published every quarter. The HPI is not published on a national level. Since the PPI is an annual news release, we publish the first quarter of the reference year, and, the second, the third and the forth quarter of the previous year. The national publication is on the same day as the HPI, or a day before or after. The PPI is usually published around t+90 days from the reference period.

Deadlines have always been met and data is sent typically according to Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2023/1470, T+85 days. Time lag occurs only in the case where data queries are sent to the data provider. For such situations, the Price Statistics Unit is currently doing an exercise with Inland Revenue Department (IRD) to reduce these queries.

Data are comparable across NUTS II regions.  

Data are comparable over time.

The PPI and the House Price Index (HPI), both measure changes in property prices. To ensure coherency between the two indices, the same methodology is used.

Consistency is also ensured between the HPI and OOHPI sub-indices for the acquisition of dwellings.

The overall indices and their subdivisions are consistently calculated. To ensure internal consistency, the HPI and the OOHPI sub-indices for the acquisition of dwellings, are compared.

As data is obtained from an administrative source, there are no costs involved. In order to reduce the burden, data is provided by the source at the beginning of every month via email. Data consists of a register and as stipulated by the law, contract transactions must be registered with the tax department. Other costs involve the salary of the employee/s working on the compilation of such indices.

The standards specified in Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2023/1470 are applied. HPI data are revisable. The data for the last four quarters are always flagged as provisional due to late contract registrations by the notaries.

The general public is informed about possible non-periodic revisions in the press releases. Data for the last four quarters is flagged as provisional due to late contract registrations by notaries.

See below.

Index numbers are compiled on administrative source data, obtained from the Capital Transfer Duty within the Inland Revenue Department. 

HPI weights are based on actual dwelling transaction values. The partition of the total HPI weight into new and existing dwellings is done using information available from the same source as used for prices.

House Sales are based on actual dwelling transaction values and counts. The partition of the total House Sales is done using information available from the same source as used for prices and weights.

All data are provided by the data source on a monthly basis.

Administrative data are obtained via email.

Various procedures ensure that errors are minimised in the data. The following validation checks are made on each record in the source data:

• extreme values are identified and eliminated if thought necessary

• data cleaning is done to remove cases of obviously erroneous data;

• minimum and maximum values are investigated and removed if believed to be suspect;

•  number of signed transactions is compared with previous months and/or quarters. 

The aggregate output is compared with those from previous quarters.

See below.

See below.

HPI is a Laspeyres-type price index.

First, a separate index based on the median price for each dwelling type is compiled. Then, the weights are used to compile the HPI sub-indices and the overall HPI. Weights are representative of the year t-1, and based on data on household expenditure on transacted dwellings that belong to the target population of the HPI. The HPI is a Laspeyres-type index that is chained on a yearly basis using the fourth quarter of the previous year as the linking period. The index is produced with 2015 = 100. 

The sub-index and elementary aggregate weights are based on data on household expenditure on transacted dwellings. The weights used to compile the index are based on the value of transactions for the three property types (apartments, maisonettes and terraced houses).Weights are based on the data from year t-1, and revised on an annual basis.

Elementary aggregate weights are adjusted with an appropriate price change between the year t-1 and the fourth quarter of the year t-1.

The HPI is chain-linked every year, using the fourth quarter of the previous year as the linking period. This enables the revision of weights on an annual basis, thus ensuring that the index is relevant at all times.

The HPI is based on the median price of each dwelling type.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Data is stratified using the dwelling type and the district information. In total, this is equivalent to 18 strata.

See below.

The price of the dwelling is the price in the final sale contract, i.e. after transfer of ownership rights. The date of the final deed is used to allocate the transactions with the respective month/quarter.

VAT is not included in the price of new dwellings.

Taxes other than VAT are not included in the price of dwellings.

The HPI includes only transactions at market prices.

The price of land is included in both prices and weights.

Housing cooperatives are not covered in the HPI.

Non-market transactions are identified from the price variable. This is usually very low, or not available. 

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

The median price approach is used in order to mitigate the problem of outliers. Also, extreme values are identified and eliminated if thought necessary.

Not applicable.

No adjustments other than quality adjustment are applied to the HPI data.

No further comments.