Global House Prices Fell 1.2% in Real Terms in the First Quarter, With Portugal Top at 15%

BIS data show global house prices fell 1.2% in real terms in the first quarter of 2026 while rising 1.7% nominally, with Portugal the fastest riser at about 15%.

Global residential property prices fell 1.2% year on year in real terms during the first quarter of 2026, while rising 1.7% in nominal terms, according to the Bank for International Settlements' residential property price statistics published on 27 August. The gap between those two numbers is the whole story: house prices are still rising almost everywhere in local currency, and still losing ground to consumer prices in most places.

Nominal Up, Real Down

A 1.7% nominal rise against a 1.2% real fall implies inflation running close to 3% across the covered economies. For an owner, the practical meaning is that a headline gain of 2% or 3% represents no gain at all once purchasing power is accounted for. The BIS series is the only widely used measure that applies this adjustment consistently across dozens of markets, which is why it routinely contradicts national headlines quoted in nominal terms.

Portugal Leads, China and Canada Trail

Portugal recorded the largest real increase at roughly 15%, ahead of North Macedonia at about 13% and Bulgaria at about 11%. At the other end, China and Canada each fell around 7% in real terms and New Zealand fell about 4%. Across the 57 economies covered, idealista's reading of the same release counts 39 markets rising, 14 falling and 4 broadly stable. A spread of more than 20 percentage points between the top and bottom of that list argues against treating "the global housing market" as a single thing.

Asia Is Doing the Damage to the Average

Advanced economies came in close to flat at −0.2% in real terms. Emerging market economies fell 2.0%, and within that group Asia fell 4.3% — the single largest regional drag on the global figure. Remove Asia and the global picture reads as stagnation rather than decline. That concentration is precisely why an aggregate number is a poor guide to any individual market.

Where Our Own Snapshots Sit

Glopra tracks several of the markets named in the release. Portugal, the top riser, shows about $2,659 per square metre with a 4.29% gross rental yield in our latest snapshot, and 17.8% nominal annual growth on the national index — higher than the BIS real figure precisely because ours is not inflation-adjusted. Spain, also among the stronger European performers, sits near $2,331 per square metre with a 5.45% gross yield. The United States, which the BIS places in the flat-to-negative real group, shows 2.2% nominal annual growth against a 6.71% gross yield.

Reading the Number Honestly

A single quarter of a globally aggregated index should not drive a decision about a specific property in a specific city. What this release does establish is a distribution: a clear majority of markets still rising, a smaller group falling hard, and an average that lands slightly negative because of where the falls are concentrated. The second-quarter release will show whether the Asian drag persists or the advanced-economy stagnation finally turns.

Sources: Bank for International Settlements, Residential property price statistics Q1 2026, 27 Aug 2026 https://www.bis.org/statistics/pp_residential_2608.htm; idealista/news Portugal, 1 Sep 2026 https://www.idealista.pt/news/imobiliario/habitacao/2026/09/01/77404-portugal-lidera-subida-do-preco-das-casas-ja-no-mundo-estao-a-cair