The paucity of decent house price data in Europe is astonishing given the breadth and depth of interest in the market. Progress is being made, as more countries produce figures, but very slowly. The lack of data is surprising given demand for the data is strong in important places, such as the ECB and BIS, leaving much room for improvement.

Speaking at an IMF/BIS conference on house price indicators five years ago, a BIS chief said: “If I were to use the IMF data quality assessment framework – and focus on what is in the framework – data integrity, methodological soundness, accuracy, reliability, serviceability – it’s clear that almost no country would meet these criteria for its national statistics on property prices”.