Housing prices rose 12% in the first quarter, matching the bubble rate of 2007.

Month after month, housing statistics continue to break records. The number of mortgages, sales, and prices are accelerating at the pace of a real estate bubble. For some time now, 2007 has become the new threshold and reference period for statistics.

This morning, the National Statistics Institute (INE) published price data for the first quarter of this year. These figures are unsurprising and confirm that the rate cuts (yesterday, the European Central Bank (ECB) implemented the eighth cut), the resulting acceleration in the mortgage market, and, above all, the lack of supply point to a record year.

Between January and March, housing prices accelerated by 12.2% compared to the same period last year, the largest increase since the first quarter of 2007, when they rose by 13.1%. There are no differences between new and existing homes, as both have increased by more than 12%, and the analysis by autonomous community doesn't allow for any major distinctions. In terms of prices, yes, but not in the pace of increase.

Prices are rising in all regions, and at a double-digit rate in all regions . The largest increases are in Andalusia and the autonomous city of Melilla (both 14.0%), and in the Region of Murcia (13.3%). The smallest increases are in the Balearic Islands (10.0%), Cantabria (10.2%), and Castilla-La Mancha (10.4%).

Perhaps the news is that the INE statistics arrive on the same day that Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is meeting with regional presidents in Barcelona, ​​with a modest housing plan in hand that has little chance of being approved. The Popular Party (PP) considers it an improvised measure ahead of a meeting that almost ended in a protest by the PP leaders.

According to the Executive's announcement yesterday, the proposal consists of tripling public investment in housing , indefinitely protecting the status of public housing, and creating a public database with its own information available on Internet portals.