House prices moderate their rise to 12.2% in the second quarter

Housing prices moderated their rise in the second quarter, although they remained at a growth level close to the record at the beginning of 2007. According to the Housing Price Index published this Monday by the National Institute of Statistics (INE), properties registered an average price between April and June that was 12.2% more expensive than last year at the same time. Despite the slight slowdown with respect to the rate of increase in prices with which they began the year, the increase continues to be especially pronounced in second-hand homes, 12.9% more expensive than in 2025.

With 2026, the Housing Price Index has chained seven consecutive quarters with double-digit year-on-year increases. The first was already at the end of 2024, when it recorded an increase of 11.3%, although the pace of increase continued to accelerate until reaching increases of 12.9% year-on-year at the end of 2025 and beginning of 2026. Waiting for what happens in the coming months, the second quarter data seems to have broken the upward trend in the rate of increase in prices that prices have accumulated since 2023. This does not mean that they have started to fall, but rather that they are rising slightly more slowly than they have been doing.

Even so, the increase noted in this last quarter is still very large. It is just under one point below the 13.1% increase recorded at the beginning of 2007, a record in the INE's historical series - it begins in that year. In addition, it must be taken into account that it is a promotion that is added to those previously registered. In the last three years, house prices have skyrocketed by 36.3%. So far this year alone, it has accumulated an increase of 7% compared to the end of 2025. These increases already place the Housing Price Index 31.7% above the peak reached in 2007, a level that has been surpassed quarter after quarter since the beginning of 2024, although this indicator does not discount the impact of inflation.

The rise in prices is especially punishing second-hand homes. After starting 2026 with a year-on-year increase of 13.5%—a record in the INE's historical series—this type of property recorded an increase of 12.9% in the second quarter. Despite the moderation, it is a variation rate similar to that recorded last year at the same time (12.8%). On the other hand, the slowdown in the rise is more noticeable in new construction homes, which recorded prices between April and June that were 7.4% higher than those of the second quarter of last year, compared to the 9.1% increase with which they began the year. In fact, in the first half of 2026 it rose in price by just 4.6%, while second-hand housing rose by 7.4%.

The uninterrupted rise in housing prices is beginning to take its toll on the real estate market. According to data from the INE, the sale and purchase of real estate has cooled slightly in the first half of the year. Between January and June, 347,464 homes were sold, 2.6% less than in the same period in 2025. Even so, these are still high figures if we take into account that last year a volume of activity was recorded not seen since the real estate bubble. Faced with the slight drop in sales, home mortgages are holding up. In the first half of the year, 259,684 have been signed, 7% more than in 2025.

No autonomous community escapes the rise in housing prices, although the photograph is disparate. The largest year-on-year increases in the second quarter occurred in Ceuta, Asturias, Castilla y León and Aragón, with prices 15.2%, 15%, 14.8% and 14.6% higher than in the same period in 2025. At the other end of the table, the most moderate increases occurred in the Canary Islands (11%), Catalonia (10.1%), the Basque Country (10%) and Navarra (9.5%), the only one below 10%.