They are also down 2.2% in Eurozone countries, according to the latest data published by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union.
Compared with the fourth quarter of 2012, house prices fell by 1% in the euro area and by 0.6% in the EU in the first quarter of 2013.
But a number of countries have seen prices rise including Estonia, Latvia, Romania and Sweden. At the other end some countries have seen considerable falls in house prices, most notably Spain, Portugal, Cyprus and the Netherlands.
Among the Member States for which data are available, the highest annual increases in house prices in the first quarter of 2013 were recorded in Estonia which saw a rise 7.7%, Latvia with an increase of 7.2%, Luxembourg up 4.3% and Sweden up 4.1%.
The largest fall was in Spain where house prices are down 12.8%, followed by Hungary with a decline of 9.3%, Portugal down 7.3% and the Netherlands down 7.2%.
The highest quarterly increase in the first quarter of 2013 was in Romania with prices up 4.3%), followed by Estonia with a rise of 3.1%, and then Latvia and Slovakia both with prices rises of 2.3%.
Again Spain saw the largest fall in quarterly prices with a decline of 5.1%, followed by Cyprus down 4.8%, Hungary down 3.3% and Portugal down 3.2%.
Other countries saw more minor house price movements. On a quarterly basis prices were down 0.7% in France, down 1.1% in Italy and down 1.4% and 5.7% respectively on an annual basis.
The UK saw a quarterly fall of 0.1% but an annual rise of 2.2%.
No data is available for Greece, Poland and Austria and second quarter data has not yet been made available from Germany.
