According to the results of the pilot phase of SICC, Confidencial Imobiliário’s new statistical system, building housing in Portugal had an average cost of 1,495 euros/m2 in 2022, 23% more than the 1,214 euros/m2 it cost in the previous year.
According to Confidencial Imobiliário, the SICC-Construction Cost Information System is a new database that is being developed by the real estate intelligence company, which allows the calculation of the construction cost per m2 for housing. Currently in a pilot phase and involving a sample of more than a hundred budgets for residential construction, the statistics resulting from the SICC present a segmentation by type of work and by construction element for the national aggregate, in addition to allowing the cost of construction also for Lisbon.
The SICC’s preliminary results thus show that building housing in Lisbon had an average cost of €1,635/m2 in 2022, registering an increase of 11% compared to the €1,474/m2 calculated for 2021. Based on the SICC sample, Lisbon exhibits , thus, a less robust increase in construction costs than the national total, at the same time reducing its differential compared to the country. Specifically, building housing in 2022 in Lisbon would cost 9% more than the national total, while in 2021 this cost difference was 21% more.
Regarding the type of work, it is concluded that, nationally, rehabilitation involves a cost 22% higher than new construction, comparing an average value of €1,725/m2 with €1,412/m2, respectively. In terms of evolution, the biggest increase was also seen in rehabilitation, where the total cost grew by 38% in the last year, while the increase in new construction was 19%.
In terms of cost structure, non-structural costs absorb the largest share of the value required for construction, whether in one or another type of work, namely, 34% of the total cost of new construction and 25% in rehabilitation. However, the biggest annual increase was observed in general costs, which practically doubled in both types of work. In rehabilitation this is an item that in 2022 consumed around 21% of the total cost and in new construction around 16%.
“Currently there is increasing uncertainty and controlling construction costs is a situation that now exerts greater pressure than the issue regarding prices. The SICC has the enormous advantage of producing updated, comprehensive and representative statistics on construction costs, playing a crucial role in providing a reference in this area. Furthermore, it has the enormous advantage of allowing the development, in the future, of an index that allows monitoring its evolution, which will be an essential tool for managing what is currently a source of major obstacle to the smooth functioning of the market”, notes Ricardo Guimarães , director of Confidencial Imobiliário.
The SICC is based on budgets prepared for the purpose of financing real estate development, aimed at real estate developers, construction companies, financial institutions, real estate appraisers, designers and architects. The system allows for greater risk control and rigorous analysis in real estate development financing, constituting, at the same time, an important benchmark tool by allowing the competitiveness of the cost structure and budgeting capacity to be assessed.
Involving data from around 100 construction budgets made available by evaluation companies specialized in credit for real estate development, the SICC pilot phase was carried out in partnership with the main national financial institutions, including BPI, Caixa Geral de Depósitos, Crédito Agrícola , Millennium bcp, Montepio Geral, Novo Banco and Santander Totta.