Global House Price Index 2009
Knight Frank’s Global House Price Index for 2009’s Q1 is now live on their website. You can view the full list of property prices on their website.
Key Highlights:
- Global housing markets continue to struggle against a backcloth of economic stagnation or decline and rising unemployment
- Isreal was the top performer over the 12 month period ending Q1 2009 recording growth of 10.9%, followed by the Czech Republic at 9.9%. The worst performers were Dubai and Singapore who recorded falls in average prices of 32% and 23% respectively
- On a quarterly basis, the most dramatic fall in prices were recorded by Dubai (-40%) and Singapore (-16.2%). The best performing markets were Jersey with a 5.6% uplift in values and Finland (+4)
- Of the sources used in this index, 14 (equating to 30% of the total index) had not reported Q1 data at the time of writing this report
- The shorter term economic outlook suggests that the world’s housing markets are likely to continue to suffer for the remainder of 2009
Summary:
Nick Barnes, head of residential research at Knight Frank UK, has emphasised that the world’s housing market remains under intense pressure with little evidence of improvement. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) have forecast GDP growth to drop by 4.3% throughout 2009 with unemployment doubling for the first time since the 1990s in 2010. Buyer demand therefore remains low and sellers’ opportunities are greatly reduced affecting the volume and value of transactions.
How they rank:
Isreal was the top performer over the 12 month period ending Q1 2009 recording growth of 10.9%, followed by the Czech Republic at 9.9%. The better performing property markets tend to be smaller and with fewer structural imbalances. The worst performers were Dubai and Singapore who recorded a fall in average prices over the period with 32% and 23% falls respectively. A further five countries also returned double digit declines.
On a quarterly basis, 48% of the countries from whom we received Q1 data reported a drop in prices compared to 88% in the Global House Price Index of the last quarter of 2008. On an annual basis, 48% of countries also showed a fall in values compared to 77% in Q4. The latest data suggests some easing in the plight of markets but, given that 14 countries did not return results, no solid conclusions can be made. It does however seems the residential markets are likely to continue suffering for some time.
