INE Bank-Housing Appraisal Median Carries to a Record €2,174/m² in April 2026 — 16.5% Year-on-Year Lift Across 34,483 Valuations, Apartments at €2,546/m² (+21%) and Single-Family at €1,561/m² (+12.7%)

The Instituto Nacional de Estatística's Inquérito à Avaliação Bancária na Habitação for April 2026, published on Wednesday 27 May, has pushed the national median bank appraisal value to a fresh record €2,174 per square metre — €23 above the March print (+1.1% month-on-month) and 16.5% above April 2025. The reading is the highest number INE has ever booked on the series, and it lands inside a month that also saw the volume of valuations lift 5.0% to 34,483 — split between 21,518 apartments and 12,965 single-family homes (moradias). Year-on-year the volume sits 3.6% below April 2025, but the price-per-square-metre tape is doing the heavy lifting on the file: mortgage-credit demand is climbing while the supply pipeline stays tight.

Apartments — €2,546/m² and a 21% Annual Lift

The apartment median for April 2026 prints at €2,546 per square metre, up 21.0% on April 2025 — the steeper of the two property-type readings on the file. The T1, T2 and T3 typologies collectively cover 92.2% of the apartment-appraisal volume: T1 at €3,239/m² (+€65 m/m), T2 at €2,615/m² (+€29) and T3 at €2,199/m² (+€29). The T1 number is the standout — the smallest urban units are the segment carrying the steepest per-metre prices, the predictable consequence of compressed supply in the Lisbon-and-Porto core where the buy-to-let, short-rent and digital-nomad demand profiles all converge on T0/T1 stock.

Single-Family Homes — €1,561/m² and a 12.7% Annual Lift

The moradia median sits at €1,561 per square metre, up 12.7% year-on-year — a meaningfully softer run than the apartment side. The gap reflects the geography of single-family supply: detached housing concentrates in the inland districts, the Centro and Alentejo regions, and the outer rings of the Lisbon and Porto metro areas, where price discovery is anchored further from the demand pressure points that drive apartment numbers.

The Regional Map — Grande Lisboa at €3,352/m², Algarve at €2,910/m², Alentejo at €1,490/m²

On the apartment side, the regional ladder is unchanged from the recent prints. Grande Lisboa tops the table at €3,352/m² — a +51.3% premium to the national median; the Algarve sits at €2,910/m² for a +31.7% premium; Península de Setúbal at €2,701/m² for a +24.2% premium. At the other end, Alentejo reads €1,490/m² and Centro €1,657/m². The discount end of the apartment map sits at Terras de Trás-os-Montes (-52.7%), Beiras e Serra da Estrela (-52.6%) and Alto Tâmega e Barroso (-51.5%) versus the national median.

For single-family homes, the same metro-coastal-versus-interior cleavage holds. Grande Lisboa tops the moradia table at €2,843/m², the Algarve at €2,667/m²; Centro closes the bottom of the median ladder at €1,147/m² and Alentejo at €1,279/m².

The Steepest YoY Climbers — Oeste e Vale do Tejo and Península de Setúbal

The regional growth leaderboard tells a more revealing story than the price levels. Oeste e Vale do Tejo records the steepest year-on-year apartment appraisal growth at +26.2% — the second-home-and-Lisbon-overflow corridor along the A1 and A8 north of the capital, where rural-Tejo and Caldas-da-Rainha stock is being repriced by the Lisbon-buyer pressure. Península de Setúbal books the steepest all-regions growth at +24.0%, with the Margem Sul corridor — Almada, Seixal, Sesimbra, Setúbal — absorbing the Lisbon-spillover demand that the A2-and-Fertagus rail commute makes operable. Açores records the steepest monthly increase at +4.1%.

Why the 16.5% Headline Matters

The bank-appraisal series is the canonical leading indicator for the IPHab (Índice de Preços da Habitação) transaction-price series that INE publishes with a one-quarter lag. The appraisal number is the valuation banks put on properties at mortgage-credit origination — it captures the price the seller and buyer have agreed plus a small valuation buffer, and it leads the transaction tape by roughly six to nine months because the appraisal is performed at the deeds-signature stage and the IPHab number is built from the formal registration. The 16.5% YoY appraisal print is consistent with the IPHab transaction prices continuing to climb into the back half of 2026, against an inflation backdrop running at 3.3% on the April CPI release — meaning the real housing-price gain is in the 13-point range on the latest data.

The reading also lands one day after Banco de Portugal Governor Álvaro Santos Pereira used the May 2026 Estabilidade Financeira release to brand housing-price correction the top systemic risk on the BdP file and to ask the Government to make the DSTI macroprudential recommendation binding by law. The BdP-versus-INE pairing on Tuesday-Wednesday — risk-warning followed by record appraisal — captures the policy-versus-market split on the housing file: macroprudential authorities are tightening tone while the appraisal tape is still extending the record run.

The Credit Side — Stock Up 12.1% YoY, Implicit Rate at 3.077%

The credit-side picture frames the appraisal reading. Banco de Portugal's mortgage-stock data through March puts the housing-credit balance at €105.1 billion, up +12.1% year-on-year — the strongest credit-stock growth Portugal has booked since the pre-2008 cycle. The implicit mortgage rate has eased to 3.077% on April readings, a three-year low as the Euribor unwinds the 2022–2023 tightening cycle. The combined picture is straightforward: cheaper credit, stronger origination, tighter supply — and an appraisal median that prints fresh records every month.

What This Means for Expats — The Bottom Line

• The €2,174/m² record is the operational price-level reference for 2026 Portuguese property-buying conversations. The national median is one number; the regional medians are what actually matter for buyer expectations — Grande Lisboa at €3,352/m² for apartments and €2,843/m² for moradias, Algarve at €2,910/m² and €2,667/m². The metro-coastal premium versus the national line sits between 30% and 55%.
• The 21% YoY apartment lift is the canonical 2026 headline for expat buyers. Apartments are the dominant expat-buyer profile in Lisbon, Porto and the Algarve, and a 21% YoY rate of change on the appraisal tape lands above the wage-growth and inflation curves by a wide margin. If you are inside a 90-to-180-day mortgage-offer window from a Portuguese lender, the appraisal lift is moving the LTV ratio against you between offer and signature unless the price you negotiated is anchored to the recent comparable.
• The Oeste-Vale-do-Tejo and Margem Sul corridors are the price-discovery frontiers right now. +26.2% and +24.0% YoY are the two steepest regional reads on the file — the corridor north of Lisbon along the A1/A8 and the Almada-Seixal-Sesimbra-Setúbal arc on the Margem Sul. These are the where the Lisbon-buyer overflow and the second-home demand are most visibly repricing local-market stock.
• The T1 €3,239/m² number is the buy-to-let ceiling. Smallest urban units are the segment carrying the steepest per-metre prices — the predictable consequence of compressed supply in the Lisbon-and-Porto core. If you are sizing the rental yield against a T1 purchase in the metro, the per-metre purchase price is the binding constraint on the cap-rate arithmetic.
• Watch the BdP-DSTI policy track. The BdP has asked the Government to convert the DSTI macroprudential recommendation into a binding rule. If the conversion lands, the credit-side amplification of the appraisal tape compresses — and the leading indicator on the IPHab transaction tape may finally slow. The 90-day window on the BdP public consultation closes through summer.

The full INE Inquérito à Avaliação Bancária na Habitação file for April 2026 is downloadable from ine.pt with the regional tables, T-typology breakdowns and monthly volume history. The May 2026 release lands inside the standard release calendar on or about 27 June 2026.