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27/03/07 - Northern Europe Property Market Expanding |
The top ten of Knight Frank's Global House Price Index
for the last quarter of 2006 is dominated by northern European housing markets...
Knight Frank release their Global House Price Index today detailing the growth trends of 33 housing markets around
the world. What's striking is that the Top 10 is dominated by Northern European markets.
Keeping its top slot for another consecutive month is Latvia (Riga) with a staggering year-on-year price growth of
66.6% in the fourth quarter of 2006. Next came Poland (33.0%), Denmark (22.0%), Norway (16.4%) and Lithuania/Vilnius
(9.0%), making the top five entirely dominated by northern European markets. Other northern European markets in the
Top Ten were Sweden (10.5%) and Estonia/Tallinn (21.4%) backing up in 9th and 10th places respectively.
Slower global house price growth hides local opportunities
Overall, Knight Frank have identified two noticeable trends at work across global housing markets:
Firstly, price growth is slowly but surely beginning to decline in most locations globally. The impact of lower
interest rates has led to sharply higher prices across Europe, Asia and the Americas. This upward trend in asset
prices is moving to a close as interest rates either remain level or begin to rise.
Secondly the emerging economies are still dominating the top of the growth table - with the recent EU accession
states being classic examples. Growth in prices here reflects wider mortgage market reform and rising wealth in
expanding economies.
Liam Bailey, Head of Knight Frank Residential Research, commented, “Too many people look to invest in the top growth
location, (like Latvia) assuming that high growth will continue. It might be a more interesting and perhaps
rewarding strategy to look at the bottom of the table and think which of these countries will see the next upturn.
Bailey continued, “For various reasons Germany has underperformed as a nation in housing market terms for a decade.
We think investors could do well to look behind the headline figure and look more closely at some of the German
sub-markets.” |
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