The Owner Occupied Housing Index (OOH PI) reflects changes of prices of the acquisition and ownership of dwellings. Purchasing prices of residential properties in Austria and price changes of repair and maintenance and insurance of dwellings are the main focus of the OOH PI. In contrast to the house price index prices of housing transactions between households are excluded.
In contrast to the HPI the OOH PI is not primarily a tool for market monitoring of dwelling prices but reflects the costs which owner occupiers face.
The indices are currently calculated on the base year 2010.
Since the year 2000 Eurostat focuses on house price indices for every European country. Several pilot projects have been started and promoted accordingly. Meanwhile, almost all European countries participate in this project. The price development of owner-occupied housing should be included in the long run in the Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices. Currently, the OOH PI is seen as a separate stand-alone index. For more information please refer to Eurostat-Homepage.
The production of the House Price Index and the OOH PI is legally covered by two regulations on national and international level:
(Regulation of the Commission from 1st February 2013)
(177. Regulation of the Ministry of Digital and Economic Affairs and the Ministry of Finance from 1st July 2019).
The weights of the Owner Occupied Housing Index are compiled from the entries in the Austrian Land Registry, data from National Accounts and the building statistics.
The index is calculated on the Laspeyres formula which creates a chain linked Laspeyres index. The base year is currently 2010 and the weighting is adapted annually. So it is possible to update the index by including regions and property types with increasing market significance.