ISTAT - Istituto Nazionale di Statistica
Euro-SDMX Metadata Structure Definition (ESMS_MSD 3.0 ESTAT)
Owner occupied housing price index
2015 - A0
1. Contact
1.1 Contact organisation
1.2 Contact organisation unit

Unit Integrated system on economic conditions and consumer prices

1.3 Contact name
1.4 Contact person function
1.5 Contact mail address

Via Torino 6, 00184 Roma - ITALY

1.6 Contact email address
1.7 Contact phone number
1.8 Contact fax number
2. Metadata update
2.1 Metadata last certified
24/05/2016
2.2 Metadata last posted
24/05/2016
2.3 Metadata last update
24/05/2016
3. Statistical presentation
3.1 Data description

The Owner-Occupied Housing Price Index (OOHPI) describes the price evolution of expenses incurred by owner occupiers. These expenses are measured using the net acquisition approach. Under this approach, prices are measured to reflect the change in the cost of goods and services which are new to the household sector as a whole.

3.2 Classification system

Index number and weights are made available at the level of detail established by the OOH Regulation (N° 93/2013). In particular the classification system for OOH is the following:

O.1 - OWNER-OCCUPIERS’ HOUSING EXPENDITURE

O.1.1 - ACQUISITION OF DWELLINGS

3.3 Coverage - sector

The OOHPI covers households which are owner occupiers.

3.4 Statistical concepts and definitions

The OOHPI measures the changes in the transaction prices of dwellings new to the household sector and other goods and services that households acquire in their role as owner-occupiers. OOHPI pilot series for main aggregates have been produced for the years 2010-2015. Data have to be considered provisional and subjected to revision. OOHPI compilation follows methodological standards set out in the Technical Manual on Owner-Occupied Housing (OOH) for HICP provided by Eurostat to ensure comparability of indices across Member States. In particular:

  • purchase of new dwellings corresponds to the acquisition of newly built dwellings of various types (e.g. dwellings in blocks of flats, terraced houses, detached “turn-key” ready houses built by developers, etc.);
  • self-built dwellings are built by households. They include the situation where the future owner organises the building himself and the situation where he/she uses the services of a building company. Prefabricated houses are also included here;
  • major renovations include significant modification, major interior restoration or transformation, reconstruction and enlargement, thus improving the existing dwelling;
  • purchase of existing dwellings new to the households corresponds to the acquisition of a dwelling that has already been acquired by at least one user non owner occupier;        
  • other services related to the purchase of a dwelling add in all transaction costs connected to the purchase of a dwelling whether existing or new, for own use;
  • major repairs and maintenance are normally associated to expenditures for material and services engaged for major maintenance, repair and decoration. Major repairs can prolong the life of the dwelling but should not represent an improvement of the dwelling compared to its original state;
  • insurance connected with the dwelling considers the service charges paid by owner occupiers for the kinds of insurance for his dwelling  similar to those typically taken out by landlords (e.g. an insurance providing cover for the structure of a dwelling: walls, fences, gates, etc.). This item should cover exactly what is excluded from HICP subheading 12.5.2;
  • other services related to ownership of dwellings are an expenditure group including all costs of ownership not considered under the above categories of the group O.1.2.
3.5 Statistical unit

Prices incurred by households which are owner occupiers.

3.6 Statistical population

Owner occupied dwelling.

3.7 Reference area

OOHPI covers the entire country but not for all the OOH items. In particular, with reference to purchases of new dwellings and purchases of existing dwellings new to the households, data are available for the whole national territory, excluding two provinces having a different cadastral system (totalizing about 2.3% of Italian population).

3.8 Coverage - Time

Data are available from first quarter of 2010.

3.9 Base period

The reference base year is 2010 (2010=100).

4. Unit of measure

Not applicable.

5. Reference Period

Not applicable.

6. Institutional Mandate
6.1 Institutional Mandate - legal acts and other agreements

Commission Regulation (EU) No 93/2013 of 1 February 2013 laying down detailed rules for the implementation of Council Regulation (EC) No 2494/95 concerning harmonised indices of consumer prices, as regards establishing owner-occupied housing price indices.

Italian National Statistical Programme 2014 – 2016, 2015-2016 revision, entered into force with Decree of the President of the Republic of 24 September 2015 and Italian National Statistical Programme 2014 – 2016, 2016 revision, currently under approval. Italian National Statistical Programme lists all the surveys of public interest and identifies those ones for which respondents are obliged to provide the data.

6.2 Institutional Mandate - data sharing

Not applicable.

7. Confidentiality
7.1 Confidentiality - policy

There are not national regulations which deal specifically with OOHPI confidentiality.

7.2 Confidentiality - data treatment

OOHPI data are not treated for confidentiality purposes in different way from other statistical data. Not relevant.

8. Release policy
8.1 Release calendar

The release calendar is not delivered because OOHPI data are not currently disseminated by Istat.

8.2 Release calendar access

Not applicable.

8.3 Release policy - user access

Not applicable.

9. Frequency of dissemination

For the time being, no OOHPI data are disseminated by Istat. From 2016, May 26, Eurostat is going to disseminate data referred to O.1, O.1.1 e O.1.2 for the period 2010 – 2015.

10. Accessibility and clarity
10.1 Dissemination format - News release

Not applicable.

10.2 Dissemination format - Publications

None.

10.3 Dissemination format - online database

Yes (Eurostat).

10.4 Dissemination format - microdata access

None.

10.5 Dissemination format - other

Not relevant.

10.6 Documentation on methodology

For the time being there is not OOHPI documentation except metadata.

10.7 Quality management - documentation

Quality reports on OOHPI are not available at the moment.

11. Quality management
11.1 Quality assurance

A general quality assurance framework still is not implemented, but continuous efforts to strengthen and improve the procedures of data control checks and adjustment for quality changes are carried out according to the guidelines and standard set out in the Technical manual on Owner-occupied housing for HICP. A reengineering of the production process is on the way and it will make more systematic the quality assurance policy.

11.2 Quality management - assessment

Istat monitors the quality of data set provided by Tax Office, the production process and carries out dissemination according to guidelines and standards set out in the Technical manual on Owner-Occupied Housing for HICP.

12. Relevance
12.1 Relevance - User Needs

Potential user needs of OOH are the following: Central Bank and Minister of Economy and Finance as financial soundness indicators with specific reference to owner occupied houses; Economic analysts for analysis purposes; business associations as sectorial indicators.

12.2 Relevance - User Satisfaction

For the time being user needs and satisfaction are not monitored.

12.3 Completeness

OOHPI fully meets the specifications set out in the Regulation

13. Accuracy
13.1 Accuracy - overall

Estimates of the overall accuracy of the OOHPI are not made.

13.2 Sampling error

Not applicable (probability sampling for the OOHPI and/or its sub-indices is not used).

13.3 Non-sampling error

Not applicable (probability sampling for the OOHPI and/or its sub-indices is not used).

14. Timeliness and punctuality
14.1 Timeliness

Time lag between the end of the period to which the OOHPI relates and its production is about 90 days. With reference to Purchase of new dwellings and Existing dwellings new to households provisional indices are transmitted to Eurostat 85 days after the end of reference period; final ones are transmitted in the following quarter.

14.2 Punctuality

OOHPI indices for the period first quarter 2010 - fourth quarter 2014 have been sent in December 2015. Indices for the year 2015 have been transmitted in April 2016. The plan for the future is to transmit data according deadlines scheduled in the Regulation 93/2013.

15. Coherence and comparability
15.1 Comparability - geographical

At the time being no regional analysis of the OOHPI is made.

15.2 Comparability - over time

There are not breaks in continuity for OOHPI.

15.3 Coherence - cross domain

Not applicable.

15.4 Coherence - internal

With reference to purchases of new dwellings the weight of OOHPI is annually compared to HPI.

16. Cost and Burden

Taking into account that 1.2 full time equivalent is involved in the OOHPI production process, the annual cost of staff could be estimated in about 60,000 euros. External costs in relation to OOHPI (e.g. purchase of data, other external resources) are not incurred. Concerning burden most of OOH price indices are based on administrative data and there are not relevant cost for data collection and no burden for the respondents; the burden is on charge of Tax Office that prepares the data set to be sent to Istat. Production process is carried out by Istat in house and therefore the costs are the costs of the resources dedicated in terms of statisticians and IT experts. Just for data concerning insurance on dwellings there is a limited burden on the main Italian insurance enterprise that is difficult, for the time being, to be estimated. Few data are collected by Municipal Offices of Statistics according to Istat instructions.

17. Data revision
17.1 Data revision - policy

Not applicable because the OOHPI is revisable in principle.

17.2 Data revision - practice

OOHPI for the year 2014 have been revised in the past 12 months; the revision is due to the acquisition of updated data used for calculation.

18. Statistical processing
18.1 Source data

Concerning weights, main sources used are explained in the following: Purchase of new dwellings: National Accounts and Building permits survey; Self build: National Accounts; Major renovations: National Accounts and Household Budget Survey; Existing dwellings new to households: database of notary deeds of sales and database of rents both provided by Tax Office; Other services related to the acquisition of dwellings: National Account; Major repairs & maintenance: National Accounts and Household Budget Survey; Insurance connected with dwellings: National Accounts; Other services related to ownership of dwellings: data from association operating in the sector (Italian Thermo - Technical  Association  (ATI)).

Concerning prices, main sources used are explained in the following: Purchase of new dwellings: administrative data provided by Italian Tax Office; Self built dwellings: HICP minor repairs indices  plus construction costs index for residential building; Major renovations: HICP minor repairs indices   plus construction costs index for residential building; Existing dwellings new to households: administrative data provided by Italian Tax Office; Other services related to the acquisition of dwellings: administrative data and sector statistics; Major repairs and maintenance: HICP minor repairs indices  plus construction costs index for residential building; Insurance connected with dwellings: ad hoc survey; Other services related to ownership of dwellings: HICP minor repairs for indices from 2010 to 2014; specific  price index for the following years.

18.2 Frequency of data collection

Except Existing dwellings new to households where data are collected monthly, other data are collected quarterly.

18.3 Data collection

Except Existing dwellings new to households where data are collected monthly, other data are collected quarterly.

18.4 Data validation

Purchase of new dwellings - various procedures ensure that errors are minimised in the data. The following validation checks are made on each record in the source data:

• extreme values are identified and eliminated if thought necessary

• data cleaning is done to remove cases of obviously erroneous data;

• minimum and maximum values are investigated and removed if believed to be suspect;

• the top and bottom 10 house price outliers are validated against external sources; and

• ratio analysis (comparing house price to total income and mortgage advance to total income) is then carried out to check for consistency. A regression model is used to detect any remaining outliers. A total of around 0.1% of records are removed each period.

Self build - Data used for index calculation are collected from Istat surveys and already validated.

Major renovations - The same as for 'Major repairs and maintenance'.

Existing dwellings new to households - the same as for 'Purchases of new dwellings' (the database used is the same).

Other services related to the acquisition of dwellings - Extreme values are identified and eliminated if necessary.

Major repairs and maintenance - For materials: data used for index calculation are collected from Istat surveys and already validated. For services: data are validated at territorial level by Municipal Offices of Statistics and centrally by Istat.

Insurance connected with dwellings - Data collected from insurance companies are checked manually. When unusual changes on prices or weights are detected than companies are recalled.

Other services related to ownership of dwellings: Data are validated at territorial level by Municipal Offices of Statistics and centrally by Istat.

18.5 Data compilation

OOHPI are calculated using a chained Laspeyres formula. The frequency of chaining in the OOHPI is annual. The frequency of updating the OOHPI sub-index weights is annual. With reference to the time of the price, for 'Purchase of new dwellings' and 'Existing dwellings new to households' transaction prices refer to the price paid when the final deed is signed and ownership rights are transferred.

18.6 Adjustment

With reference to quality adjustment, for O.1.1.1.1 (Purchase of new dwellings) and O.1.1.2 (Existing dwellings new to households) a mix of data stratification and the hedonic method of re-pricing has been adopted. Re-pricing methods imply the use of a hedonic function to clean prices from the influence of qualitative features and geographical locations. Hedonic function is estimated for each year y, during the indices re-basement, through a regression model that uses the data of the previous year (y-1): estimated regression coefficients are kept constant for the whole reference year (y).A model is estimated for each geographical area (North-west, North-east, Centre, South and Islands) and for new and existing houses separately (in order to guarantee a minimum amount of observations in each stratum, total strata are 240, whereof 192 are referred to the existing ones and 48 to the new ones). In the model, the main explicative variables are the following ones: a) natural logarithms of the surface, b) percentage of the surface of the house appurtenance, c) house typology, d) the floor; the dependent variable is the natural logarithms of the price for square metre. With reference to the others OOHPI sub-indices, no quality-mix adjustment is done.

19. Comment

None.