The aim of this Handbook is to facilitate the setting-up of residential property price indices in countries where these are still missing and the improvement of existing price indices where this is deemed necessary. It is designed to give practical guidance on the compilation of house price indices, both in developed and less developed countries, and to increase the international comparability of residential property price indices. It explains the different user needs, gives details on data and methods that can be used to compile residential property price indices and provides recommendations. The production of the Handbook was funded and supported by Eurostat. The need for property price indices that are fit for purpose was recognized at a conference organized jointly by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in Washington DC, October 2003. As a result, a chapter on residential property price indices was added to the IMF’s “Compilation Guide of Financial Soundness Indicators”. The idea of a more detailed Handbook dates back to a workshop organized by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the IMF on Real Estate Price Indices in Paris, in November 2006. The Handbook would complement the existing international manuals on consumer price indices, producer price indices and import-export price indices that were produced under the auspices of the Inter-Secretariat Working Group on Price Statistics. Eurostat agreed to take this initiative forward by supporting and funding the preparation of the Handbook, given the strong links to its ongoing work on the inclusion of owner-occupied housing in the Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) and the role that house price indices have in the set of “Principal European Economic Indicators”. At the Eurostat-IAOS-IFC conference on residential property price indices, held in Basel, 11-12  November 2009, the Handbook plan was discussed. Preliminary versions of the Handbook were presented and discussed at several occasions, in particular at the UNECE-ILO Meeting on Consumer Price Indices in Geneva, 10-12  May 2010, a workshop held in The Hague, 10-11 February 2011, and the twelfth Ottawa Group meeting in Wellington, 4-6 May 2011.