With 2011 now officially behind us, it’s time to take a look at what happened to international property prices during the past year, and review the best performing property markets worldwide.
Regional data is usually produced on a quarterly basis, and therefore currently the results for the 12 months to 30 September 2011 can be examined.
Given the weak recovery of the global economy and and the international financial markets in the final quarter of 2011, real estate prices are likely to show little improvement between October and December 2012. Therefore, the bellow results are very much likely be in line with the results for 2011 as a whole.
The most recent Knight Frank Global House Price Index, which tracks the performance of mainstream housing markets, showed zero growth in the three months to September. This was the index’s weakest performance since Q2 2009 and raises fears that it could enter negative territory by the end of the year.
The third quarter of 2011 saw mounting pressures on the global economy with politicians seemingly helpless to get to grips with the eurozone debt crisis. This has reawakened fears of a double dip recession, not just in Europe but around the world. Unsurprisingly, this economic uncertainty has been reflected in the performance of the world’s housing markets.
The boom conditions experienced between 2004 and 2007 when global housing markets recorded double-digit annual price growth for 16 consecutive quarters are a distant memory. Average annual growth now stands at just 1.5%, despite rises of up to almost 20% in some Asian countries.
The East/West divide in price performance evident since 2008 is now starting to fade as the deflationary measures applied by policy makers in Asia start to take effect. Average annual price growth in Asia has fallen from 15.2% in Q1 2010 to 6.9% in Q3 2011.
Knight Frank Global House Price Index, Q3 2011
1. Hong Kong (+19.3% year-on-year)
2. Estonia (+14.3% y-o-y)
3. India (+13.9% y-o-y)
4. Taiwan (+12.7% y-o-y)
5. Slovenia (+9% y-o-y)
6. China* (+8.9% y-o-y)
7. Norway (+8.3% y-o-y)
8. Colombia (+7.6% y-o-y)
9. France (+6.7% y-o-y)
10. Iceland (+6.7% y-o-y).
