Property prices in Hong Kong climbed 26.5 percent in the last 12 months, recording the largest increase during the period, according to Knight Frank’s Global House Price Index.
Based on Q2’s year-on-year price change, the latest price index also showed that Singapore was the ninth best-performing market globally, with the house price index rising 6.7 percent in Q2 from the same period last year.
Overall, Asia remained the top performing continent in terms of home price increases for seven consecutive quarters, reflecting an average of eight percent growth over the last 12 months.
This was mainly attributed to the significant annual increase in Hong Kong, although Knight Frank’s report showed that the tide is beginning to turn. The city-state’s quarterly price in Q2 2011 was only 3.5 percent, down from 10.1 percent in the previous quarter.
Proving that the Asian policy measures are having considerable impact, similar patterns were seen in China and India, where property prices declined 0.1 percent and 1.7 percent in Q2 respectively.
Meanwhile, Europe and North America remained the weakest performing markets globally, with prices dropping 0.1 percent and 0.9 percent respectively.
Knight Frank also noted that the fall in prices could be partly due to the absence of the double-digit annual price growth seen in Singapore, China and India during 2009 and 2010.
Amid weakening prices, the global real estate services firm said the global luxury market seems to be insulated for the moment.
“In fact, global economic and political turbulence has underlined their ‘safe haven’ qualities in the eyes of the world’s wealthy elite,” it said.
“Looking forward it is difficult to be positive about price prospects in the developed world’s mainstream housing markets. Ongoing low interest rates and other market support measures are likely to spur increased sales activity rather than price growth.”
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