Residential Property Price Indices (RPPIs) and related housing indicators: Frequently Asked Questions

RPPIs can be downloaded from three different datasets are available:

• National and Regional House Price Indices (NRHPI dataset): This dataset contains nominal house price indices for OECD members and G20 countries. Whenever possible, these RPPIs are broken down by region, dwelling type (single- and multi-family dwellings) and vintage (new and existing dwellings). It also contains related housing indicators such as Consumer Price Indices for housing, and Housing transactions (number and/or value). In order to adjust house price evolutions for overall inflation, this dataset also includes the households’ final consumption expenditure deflator from the national accounts. The Headline Indicators dataset is a subset of this complete dataset (see below).
  
  
• National and Regional House Price Indices – Headline Indicators (NRHPI – Headline indicators dataset): This dataset covers OECD members and G20 countries. For each country, at national and regional levels where available, the RPPI that is available at the most aggregate level has been singled out in this dataset, but due to data availability, headline indicators are country specific. For example, the RPPI at the most aggregate level for the United States only covers single-family dwellings and not all types of dwellings, as is the case for most other OECD countries. 
  
  
• Analytical house price indicators: This dataset focuses on the national level. In addition to nominal RPPIs, it contains information on real house prices, rental prices, the ratio of nominal house prices to rents, and the ratio of nominal house prices to household disposable income per capita. It should be noted that for Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, the United States and the Euro area, the datasets “Analytical House Price Indicators” and “National and Regional House Price Indices – Headline Indicators” do not refer to the same nominal house price indices. These differences are further documented in country-specific metadata that are attached to this dataset.

You can use the OECD House Price Tracker, the OECD interactive tool, to see how house prices have evolved over time in different countries, regions and cities.

Download here metadata by country for national and regional RPPIs.

More specifically on regional RPPIs series:

• Download here a review of the availability of the regional RPPI breakdown by country. 
• Download here the reference classification used to classify RPPIs according to the OECD Territorial level (PDF).

RPPIs are usually available at annual and quarterly frequency. For Canada, Ireland, Iceland, Israel, Japan, Korea, Turkey, United Kingdom, China, and South Africa, they are also available at monthly frequency.

The OECD updates RPPIs for OECD countries and non-OECD members on a monthly basis following the RPPI release calendar of each country.
RPPIs at national level for Denmark, Hungary, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, the European Union and the euro Area are directly collected from Eurostat and the updating process follows the House Price Index Release calendar for Euro Indicators.

The OECD aims to publish three Headline Indicators for all OECD and G20 countries:

• RPPI Total covering all types of newly built and existing dwellings for all types of dwellings (flats, detached houses, terraced houses, etc.)
• RPPI New covering all types of newly built dwellings for all types of dwellings (flats, detached houses, terraced houses, etc.).
• RPPI Existing covering all types of existing dwellings for all types of dwellings (flats, detached houses, terraced houses, etc.).

A further breakdown by type of dwelling may also be available (note that the classification and terminology may differ significantly from one country to another):

• All types of dwellingsrefer to all dwellings purchased by households regardless of their structural characteristics, e.g. detached houses, semi-detached houses, terraced houses, row houses or townhouses, multi-family apartments, condominiums, and coops.
  • Single-family dwellings are freestanding residential buildings, e.g. detached houses.
  • Multi-family dwellings are multiple separate housing units for residential inhabitants contained within one building or several buildings within one complex, e.g. apartment buildings, duplex or semi-detached houses, and townhouses.

RPPI Total, RPPI New and RPPI Existing are available for 25 OECD countries at national level (Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, and United Kingdom). Some countries only publish one or two of these indicators. For example, only RPPI Total is available for Australia, Chile, Colombia, Island, Japan, New Zealand, the European Union and the Euro area. Israel publishes both RPPI Total and RPPI New, while Korea publishes only RPPI existing.

For Canada, Greece, Switzerland, and the United-States, none of these three indicators is currently available. An alternative Headline Indicator has therefore been selected:

• Switzerland: RPPI covering newly-built and existing dwellings for single-family dwellings (detached houses).
• Greece: RPPI covering newly-built and existing dwellings for multi-family dwellings (apartment buildings, duplex or semi-detached houses, and townhouses).
• United-States: RPPI existing dwellings for single-family dwellings (detached houses).
• Canada: RPPI covering newly-built dwellings for single-family dwellings (detached houses).

All non-OECD G20 countries publish one of the three Headline Indicators:

• Brazil, China, India, Saudi Arabia and South Africa publish RPPI Total;
• The Russian Federation publishes both RPPI New and Existing;
• Indonesia publishes RPPI New only.

Methodological limitations and comparability issues may exist for RPPIs published by non-OECD G20 countries. They are described in detail in Metadata.

The OECD aims to publish, for all OECD and G20 countries, national and regional RPPIs whenever possible.

All OECD and G20 countries except the following ones publish RPPIs covering the whole country:

• Australia: 8 capital cities;
• Canada: 27 metropolitan areas;
• Greece: Urban areas;
• Brazil: Urban areas;
• China: 70 cities;
• Indonesia: 18 cities;
• Russian Federation: Urban areas.

At regional level, the available RPPIs are classified according to the OECD Territorial Level (TL)  classification whenever possible. The 394 OECD large regions (TL2) represent the first administrative tier of subnational government, for example, the Ontario Province in Canada. The 2258 OECD small regions (TL3) correspond to administrative regions, with the exception of Australia, Canada and the United States. This classification is largely consistent with the Eurostat NUTS 2016 for European countries.

27 OECD countries publish RPPIs at subnational level.

Calculating real house price growth, i.e. controlling for national general inflation, allows for a more meaningful comparison of house price dynamics across countries. The recommended deflator is the deflator of final consumption expenditure of households, compiled according to the 2008 System of National Accounts (SNA). It is important to note that this deflator is typically only available at national level, meaning that the same deflator is used for all regions within a given country, and therefore, that heterogeneity in consumer price dynamics across the different regions of a country is neglected.

This deflator is included in the National and Regional House Price Indices (NRHPI) dataset.

The OECD publishes all RPPIs with 2015=100 as reference year to facilitate comparisons across countries.

National providers may calculate indices using a different reference period (e.g. Japan publishes RPPI Total with 2010=100 as reference year). In such cases, these indices are re-referenced by the OECD to 2015=100.

The OECD also uses RPPIs to compile house price evolutions: Percentage change on the same period of the previous year and Percentage change on the previous period. An advantage of calculating percent changes is that the result will be the same no matter what base period is specified.

In summary, the three following measures for each RPPI:

1. Index with 2015=100 as reference year.
2. Percentage change on the same period of the previous year.
3. Percentage change on the previous period.

1. NRHPI and NRHPI – Headline Indicators:

For most countries, the available RPPIs are not seasonally adjusted. Only, Denmark, France, Japan, Norway and the United Kingdom published both the seasonally and non-seasonally adjusted RPPIs. For these countries, the following seasonally adjusted RPPIs are available in the NRHPI dataset:

• Denmark: RPPI Total for Single- and Multi-family dwellings at national level.
• France: All RPPIs.
• United Kingdom: RPPI Total for the United Kingdom as a whole and 10 large regions.

South Africa only publishes the seasonally adjusted version of its RPPI Total.

2. The RPPIs published in the dataset Analytical house price indicators are all seasonally adjusted. For France, the United Kingdom and the United States, they are collected directly from the national source (respectively INSEE, UK Land Registry, and FHFA). For other countries, seasonally adjusted indicators are calculated by the OECD by using the X12-Arima procedure.

The most comprehensive methodological information on RPPIs is usually available from the official statistical agencies compiling these indices. For each country, a summary and a link to the original methodological information is available here.

International statistical guidelines for the compilation of RPPIs are available in the Handbook on Residential Property Price Indices, ILO, IMF, OECD, UNECE, Eurostat, World Bank (eds.), (2013), Luxembourg.

In addition to RPPIs, related housing indicators are also collected by the OECD. The following indicators are currently available:

• Consumer price indices (CPIs) for housing (COICOP 04), components series and associated weights:
  

The CPI for housing covers the COICOP 04.1, Actual rentals for housing, COICOP 04.2, Imputed rentals for housing & COICOP 04.3, Maintenance and repair of the dwelling).

When imputed rentals for housing (COICOP 04.2) is not available, the CPI for Housing excluding imputed rentals for housing is instead available. It is the case, for Belgium, Chile, Estonia, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain and Turkey.

These series are extracted from the Consumer price indices dataset. Additional information on CPIs published by the OECD is available in the Consumer Price Indices FAQs. 

• Housing transactions (number and/or value) by country: this dataset contains house sales series (number and/or value of housing transactions) at quarterly frequency for 12 OECD countries. This covers the total value of dwellings transactions at national level (both houses and flats) where the purchaser is a household.

In the future, other related indicators, such as Housing structural indicators (Stock of dwellings, Type of tenure, Occupancy status) and Construction indicators (Building permits, Housing starts, Housing completions and Production in construction) will also be collected.