A massive seventy-four percentage points now separate the world’s strongest and weakest-performing mainstream city housing markets, according to the latest research from real estate firm Knight Frank,
Kuala Lumpur, ranked 54th of the 150 surveyed cities, saw a 6.4 percent year-on-year annual change in prices, but perhaps more astonishingly is that fact that post Lehman in Q3 of 2008, the city has outperformed with mainstream average housing prices almost doubling at 92.4 percent, according to the real estate firm.
The Global Residential Cities Index, which is based on official house price data published by either National Statistic Offices or Central Banks, for 150 cities across the world, increased by 4.5 percent in the year to March 2016.
Some 74 percent of the cities tracked by the Index saw house prices rise in the year to March 2016. The gap between the strongest and weakest performing housing market has expanded from 55 percentage
points last quarter to 74.
The widening gap can, to a large extent, be attributed to the phenomenal rate of growth recorded in the Chinese city of Shenzhen. This rapidly-expanding technology hub, located less than 11 miles of Hong Kong, saw annual price growth jump from 48 percent last quarter to 63 percent in the year to March 2016.
Chinese cities now account for four of the top five performing cities but new measures introduced in March in some Tier 1 cities such as Shenzhen and Shanghai are likely to lead to more muted growth during the remainder of 2016, according to Knight Frank.
The data under analysis covers the period to Q1 2016 but looking to the future, all eyes will now be on the UK’s decision to leave the EU and the impact it has on property markets, not just in the UK but globally.
