Austrian house price index: what it shows and latest figures

What is a house price index?

House price index (Häuserpreisindex, Wohnimmobilienpreisindex): a measure of how residential property prices develop over time. The base year is set to 100; an index value of 150 means comparable residential property costs half as much again as in the base year.

The key word is comparable. An index adjusts for the fact that in one quarter more new builds, larger flats or better locations are sold than in the previous one. It does not compare the average prices of two quarters but the prices of similar properties. This is called quality adjustment; the OeNB uses a hedonic regression model for it.

Who publishes the index, and how often?

Oesterreichische Nationalbank. The OeNB publishes its residential property price index quarterly, separately for Vienna and for Austria excluding Vienna, each for single-family houses and owner-occupied flats, and in Vienna also for new and second-hand flats. The base year is 2000. The series is produced together with DataScience Service GmbH and TU Wien. The table above comes from this series.

Statistik Austria. Statistik Austria also calculates a quarterly house and flat price index (HPI) for the whole of Austria, based on European regulations and on private households' purchase contracts in the land register. It distinguishes new and existing dwellings; the base year is 2025. For the second quarter of 2026, Statistik Austria reported a provisional increase of 5.1% on the same quarter of the previous year on 23 September 2026; the third quarter is scheduled for 18 December 2026. All figures are on its house price index page.

Both indices can revise earlier quarters. A value given today for a quarter may look slightly different in the next release.

Index or price level: the difference

An index answers the question "How much have prices changed?". A price level answers "What does a square metre cost?". You cannot read a price per square metre from an index value, and you cannot reliably read a price trend from two square-metre prices from different years: what was sold in one year differs from the year before.

There are other sources for the price level. Once a year, Statistik Austria publishes average prices per province and district; they are on our pages Austria property price overview, Property prices Vienna and Lower Austria property prices.

How to read the rates of change

On the same quarter last year. This is the usual figure: the same quarter one year earlier. Seasonal fluctuations even out because spring is compared with spring. The OeNB publishes this figure itself.

On the previous quarter. It shows the short-term movement but fluctuates more because the series is not seasonally adjusted. A single negative quarter is not yet a turning point. We calculated this figure from the index; the OeNB does not show it in its table.

An index increase is also nominal. Whether residential property has become more expensive in real terms only becomes clear when compared with inflation over the same period.

What the index means for your flat or house

The index describes the market of a whole region. A single flat can differ markedly: location within the district, condition of the building, floor, outdoor space. A statistical reference value for a specific property comes from the property valuation calculator; in Vienna and Lower Austria we value on the basis of comparable sales.