Methodological note to consumer price index - imputed rentals

Imputed rentals of owner-occupiers (owner occupied housing costs)

Index calculation is based on the concept of international statistics Owner Occupied Housing Price Index, which came from the acquisition approach for measuring owners expenditure on their dwellings. Purchase of residential estates by households is understood as investment in national account concept and they are not included in the final household consumption. On the other hand household consumption includes services of housing in own real estate. Price statistics considers current costs of household consumption more than value of this consumption itself – therefore residential estates, which will serve for own housing, are considered as durable goods (like e.g. motor cars). For this reason imputed rentals price index included in consumer price index is calculated as index of costs on acquisition, increasing and maintenance of housing stock for owner occupied housing, including related services and taxes, paid by household in accordance with this. Consumer price index contains only aggregate expenditures of all households to other entities, therefore purchases of households from other households are not included in it.

Owner occupied housing price index consists of these price indices:

• market prices of new flats and family houses, sold as a final product, i.e. no self-help houses, excluding land prices
• individual construction (all types of self-help) of new family houses
• renovation and rebuilding of family houses
• renovation of residential buildings
• reconstruction and maintenance of dwellings and family houses
• payment for real estate brokerage
• tax paid by households for real estate acquisition (this tax was abolished in 2020 and was paid by households for transactions with residential estates between themselves)

The source of the price indices calculation are detailed data about construction work and material inputs for construction, price surveys of new flats and family houses and survey of payments for real estate brokerage.

Note: Abolition of tax paid by households for real estate acquisition influenced calculation of owner occupied housing costs gradually from June to September 2020.

For details see methodological manual