Construction costs on housing increased 3.8% in August

Construction costs on new housing saw a like-for-like increase of 3.8% but a fall of 0.9% on July according to data from the index of New Housing Construction Costs (ICCHN), published by Portugal’s National on Wednesday.

Looking a the prices of materials in August there was a variation of 0.9% (1.5% in July) while the cost of manpower increased 7.3% (-1.2% on July).

The cost of labor contributed 3.3 percentage points (3.9 percentage points in the previous month) to the formation of the year-on-year ICCHN variation rate, and materials registered a contribution of 0.5 percentage points (0.8 percentage points in July).

Among the materials that most positively influenced the aggregate price variation are glass and mirrors, with an increase of about 30% and coating, insulation and waterproofing materials and ready-mixed concrete with an increase of about 5%.

Source: ICCHN/INE