Eurostat, the Statistical office of the European Union.

C4: price statistics. Purchasing power parities. Housing statistics.

European Commission, Eurostat
L-2920 Luxembourg

The Owner-Occupied Housing Price Index (OOHPI) is an index following the ‘net acquisitions approach’.

Indices produced under this approach reflect the changes in prices paid by consumers for the acquisition of dwellings that are new to the household sector and changes in other costs related to the ownership and transfer of ownership of dwellings (for more, see section 3.4).

The data on the OOHPI are disseminated quarterly through Eurostat’s website. Provided information includes price indices at the country and European level, data on rates of change, relative weights for OOH expenditure categories (item weights) as well as relative weights of Member States in the country-group aggregates (country weights) (see section 3.4. for more details).

The OOHPI covers the following expenditure categories:

• O.1. Owner-occupiers’ housing expenditures
• O.1.1. Acquisitions of dwellings
• O.1.1.1. New dwellings
• O.1.1.1.1. Purchases of newly built dwellings
• O.1.1.1.2. Self-build dwellings and major renovations
• O.1.1.2. Existing dwellings new to households
• O.1.1.3. Other services related to the acquisitions of dwellings
• O.1.2. Ownership of dwellings
• O.1.2.1. Major repairs and maintenance
• O.1.2.2. Insurance connected with dwellings
• O.1.2.3. Other services related to ownership of dwellings

The price index covering ‘Acquisitions of dwellings’ (O.1.1.) includes expenditures incurred by owner-occupiers on the acquisition of new dwellings, existing dwellings that are new to the household sector, and the other services related to the acquisitions of dwellings (e.g. property transfer tax, stamp duty, real estate agent commissions and notary fees). The subcategory ‘new dwellings’ covers purchases of newly built dwellings and self-build dwellings and major renovations.

The price index of ‘Ownership of dwellings’ (O.1.2.) covers expenditures incurred by owner-occupiers on major repairs and maintenance, insurance connected with the dwelling and any other services related to ownership of dwellings. These expenditures relate to the whole stock of owner-occupied dwellings. 

ESA 2010 sector S. 14 (Household sector).

The OOHPI covers the expenditures incurred by households for the purchase of a dwelling (which is new to the sector) and the ongoing costs supported by households in their capacity as owner-occupiers.

The OOHPI measures the evolution of prices paid by owner-occupiers for purchasing, maintaining and living in an own home in the reference period, compared to the base period.

The OOHPI is compiled following the ‘net acquisitions approach’ to owner-occupied housing expenditures. Under this method, recorded prices are full market transaction prices, and the total value of the purchase is allocated to the time of purchase, regardless on when its consumption starts and when and how the payment is done. The ‘net principle’ on which the OOHPI is based implies that prices are measured to reflect the change in the acquisition cost of the goods and services which are new to the household sector as a whole.

Published data is as follows:

Annual OOHPI (prc_hpi_ooa):

• Annual average index (2015=100, 2010=100),
• Annual average rate of change.

Quarterly OOHPI (prc_hpi_ooq):

• Quarterly index (2015=100, 2010=100),
• Quarterly rate of change,
• Annual rate of change.

Item weights (prc_hpi_ooinw)

Country weights (prc_hpi_oocow)

• For all EU and euro area aggregates

The basic unit of statistical observation are transaction prices of dwellings new to the household sector and of other products that the households acquire in their role as owner-occupiers.

The target statistical universe of the OOH price index is all transactions included in owner-occupiers’ housing expenditure. The categories of owner-occupiers’ housing expenditure covered by the OOH price index are defined in Annex to Commission Regulation (EU) 2023/1470 of 17 July 2023.

Official country groups:

• European Union (EU),
• Euro area (EA).

Individual country series:

• European Union Member States (except Greece),
• the United Kingdom (until the third quarter of 2020),
• Iceland,
• Norway.

The length of time series varies between countries. The period from 2010 onwards is covered by all countries providing OOHPI data.

The OOHPI is a chain-linked Laspeyres-type price index, which uses 2015 as the index reference period (2015=100). The index series with reference period 2010=100 are also available in the database tables prc_hpi_oo.

The Following units are used:

• Index (2015=100, 2010=100): expressed as an index-number, with 100 in the base period;
• Percentage change on the same period of the previous year (annual rates of change);
• Percentage change on the previous period (quarterly rates of change);
• Weights: expressed as per mille share of the total.

The OOHPI is compiled quarterly. The indices represent the whole calendar quarter.

The act providing the framework for the compilation of the OOHPI is the European Parliament and Council Regulation (EU) 2016/792 of 11 May 2016.

The basic methodological and technical specifications for the compilation of the OOHPI is given by the Commission Regulation (EU) 2023/1470 of 17 July 2023.

All regulations relevant to the OOHPI, as well as repealed legislation and other relevant documents, can be found in the Housing Price Statistics section of Eurostat's website under ‘Legislation’.

None.

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.

According to policy rules (see point 7.1).

The OOHPI data are made available on Eurostat’s website every quarter at 11:00 a.m. on the day of the ‘News Release on the HPI’. The Statistics Explained article on the OOHPI is published a few days after data release.

Eurostat’s release calendar

In accordance with the Community legal framework and the European Statistics Code of Practice Eurostat disseminates European statistics on its website (see item 10 - 'Accessibility and clarity') respecting professional independence and in an objective, professional and transparent manner in which all users are treated equitably. The detailed arrangements are governed by the Eurostat protocol on impartial access to Eurostat data for users.

The OOHPI data are made available on a quarterly basis.

Not applicable.

Statistics Explained article on the OOHPI, available online

See database tables prc_hpi_oo .

See further information on the available datasets under section 3.4 'Statistical concepts and definitions'.

None.

None.

A ‘Technical Manual on OOHPI and House Price Statistics’ is available from Eurostat’s methodological webpage, under the ‘Manuals / handbooks’ section.

A guidance note on the compilation of the HPI and OOHPI during the COVID-19 crisis, which was developed by Eurostat, is also available in the methodology page, under ‘COVID-19 - HPI and OOHPI’.

Not available.

Member States and Eurostat work together to ensure that the statistical practices used to compile national and European OOHPIs are in line with the good practices for this field of official statistics.

Member States and Eurostat are continuously working to improve the quality and the comparability of the indices.

The OOHPI can have a variety of potential uses, such as:

• An indicator for monetary policy and inflation targeting;
• An instrument aiming at measuring inflation incurred by owner-occupiers;
• For assessing housing affordability over time;
• An input for national accounts, to economic forecasts, and for decision makers;
• As a potential input into the consumer price indices as a means to measure owner-occupied housing costs.

No information.

All EU Member States (except Greece), Iceland and Norway provide OOHPI data.

Member States are not required to produce and transmit sub-indices of the OOH price index accounting for less than one part in a hundred of the total owner-occupiers’ housing expenditure. Therefore, sub-indices for ‘existing dwellings new to households’, ‘insurance connected with dwellings’ and ‘other services related to ownership of dwellings’ are not available for some countries.

The accuracy of source data is monitored by assessing the methodological soundness of price and weight sources and the adherence to the regulations and recommendations.

There is a variety of possible data sources for weights and prices (e.g., national accounts data, administrative data, bank mortgage data, construction companies, real estate agents).

The data collection depends on the data sources used across Member States. In some cases, the whole universe of transactions is used (e.g. administrative data). In other cases, surveys are used. The type of survey and the price collection methods are designed to ensure sufficient coverage and timeliness.

Sampling errors are in practice not assessed as the OOHPI is based on a variety of data sources, which includes data drawn from non-probabilistic sampling frames.

Nevertheless, price index compilers take into account possible bias stemming from sample misrepresentation by using administrative data sources (in which the totality of the population is taken into account) or ensuring that representative samples are drawn for OOHPI subcategories.

Mistakes arising from the result of data collection and other sources of non-sampling errors are difficult to ascertain and are, for this reason, not available for the OOHPI.

The OOHPI is published on Eurostat’s website on a quarterly basis, around one quarter and one week after the end of the reference quarter.

The OOHPI data has always been made available on Eurostat’s website on the scheduled release dates.

The OOH price indices are generally comparable across countries.

The OOHPI data are considered comparable over time. Nonetheless, because of several improvements in methodology, some breaks in time series exist. In such cases, if basic data allows, back calculations are performed, and historical series are revised. If basic data does not allow, the year or the quarter when the break in the time series took place is marked with a (b) flag.

Some subcategories of the OOHPI (e.g. Purchases of newly built dwellings) can be checked against similar HPI subcategories for coherence.

The OOHPI is internally coherent. Higher level aggregations are derived from OOHPI subcategories following well-defined procedures.

No information.

To further specify the general Eurostat revision policy, the following has been established for the OOHPI.

The OOHPI series are revisable under the terms set in articles 27 to 29 of Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2023/1470, of 17 July 2023. The published OOHPI data may be revised due to mistakes, to the revision of provisional data, and other reasons (e.g. improved and new data sources).

The revision calendar for the OOHPI domain is aligned to the Eurostat release calendar for the quarterly HPI.

Reported errors related to countries or European aggregates are assessed for seriousness to determine whether they should trigger a correction of already disseminated data.

Reported errors that are deemed to be significant (visible by more than 1 percentage point in the annual rate of change) are corrected in the disseminated data as soon as the correct data have been validated. Corrections for other errors are carried out in connection with the regular scheduled data dissemination.

Data may be published even if, for certain countries, they are missing or flagged as provisional or of low reliability. They are replaced with final data once transmitted and validated (with the publication of next reference period). Aggregates and components are revised at the same time.

Most recent quarterly OOHPI are often revised. Revisions do not exceed the last 4 quarters.

New data are only used to update disseminated data if provided according to the provision schedule set by Eurostat, or in the case of reported errors.

Country revisions due to changes in methodology or data sources are detailed in the methodology part of the housing price statistics section of the Eurostat website.

The collection of data is carried out by the NSIs. The data sources used vary depending on the OOHPI category. Some categories are typically based on statistics developed primarily for other purposes. For instance, the OOHPI categories ‘purchases of newly built dwellings’ and ‘existing dwellings new to households’ are often approximated using corresponding HPI categories. Additionally, the category ‘self-build dwellings and major renovations’ is typically based on short-term business statistics for construction, such as the output price index in construction. Price indices for other lower-level categories are usually compiled from observed prices that are collected specifically for that purpose.

When deriving the OOHPI weights, national accounts data, supplemented with information from other statistical sources, are typically used. Data on gross fixed capital formation is utilised for categories related to ‘acquisition of dwellings’, while data on intermediate consumption is employed for categories related to ‘ownership of dwellings’.

Quarterly.

The data collection methods are chosen by the NSIs and depend on access to data, exhaustiveness, quality, cost, timeliness, and other relevant considerations.

Data validation is essentially done at the national level by the NSIs. Eurostat also carries out additional consistency checks upon arrival of national data.

National OOHPIs are produced by NSIs, while country-group indices (EU, EA) are produced by Eurostat.

The OOHPI categories ‘purchases of newly built dwellings’ and ‘existing dwellings new to households’ are approximated by countries with already available HPI sub-indices or calculated with the use of the same data sources and similar calculation methods as those of the HPI. Other lower-level categories, if not based on statistics compiled for other purposes, are calculated using similar procedures to those used for compiling the harmonised index of consumer prices (HICP). Higher level categories (i.e. ‘owner-occupiers’ housing expenditures’, ‘acquisitions of dwellings’, ‘new dwellings’ and ‘ownership of dwellings’) are calculated using the Laspeyres-type formula. The weights used in the calculations are price-updated to the fourth quarter of the previous year.

The country-group indices for the euro area and EU are calculated by Eurostat using the OOHPI data provided by the countries. The calculation procedure is as follows:

1. Price changes since the fourth quarter of the previous year are derived from national OOHPIs;
2. The weighted average of these price changes is computed using country weights and sub-indices concerned. A country weight is its share of the owner-occupiers’ housing expenditure in the total of the country group;
3. The price change of the country group since the fourth quarter of the previous year is chain-linked to the index of fourth quarter of the previous year in order to provide a series with a common reference period.

The country weights used in the calculation of the euro area index are derived from the owner-occupiers’ housing expenditure expressed in euros. For the EU OOH price indices, the euro area is treated as a single entity to which data for the other countries is then added. In this case, the weights are derived from the owner-occupiers’ housing expenditure data converted into purchasing power standards.

The data is not subject to seasonal adjustment.

None.