According to the latest Global Residential Cities Index from Knight Frank, despite the global economy’s strong performance, property price growth is restrained, with urban prices rising at their slowest rate since the third quarter of 2015.
The Global Residential Cities Index tracks movement in average residential prices across 150 cities around the world. A year ago the report saw 12 cities exceed 20 per cent growth per annum, this quarter only Surat, India, fell into that category.
Hobart was the highest Australian city on the list with a growth of 14.1 per cent putting it in eighth place, followed by Melbourne showing a 6.2 per cent growth in 46th position. Canberra sat at 76, with 3.8 per cent growth, and Adelaide at 89 with 2.6 per cent.
Australia ranked second in the countries with the highest gap between the top performing and lowest performing cities, sitting just behind India. The current gap between Darwin and Hobart is 20.6 per cent.
Elsewhere in the world, Wellington took out the top spot for New Zealand, coming in at 38 with a 2.7 per cent growth. Auckland also featured on the list at 101 with 1.2 per cent growth.
Eleven of the top 20 cities ranked by annual growth are in Europe. Rotterdam (14.8 per cent), Edinburgh (12 per cent), Porto (11.7 per cent) and Sofia (11.3 per cent) now join long-standing frontrunners such as Berlin (14.9 per cent), Budapest (14.4 per cent) and Reykjavik (11.8 per cent).
Seattle (12.9 per cent) continues to lead the 15 US cities tracked by the index, buoyed by a simple lack of supply in the face of escalating demand. Second only to San Francisco as the United States’ main technology hub, the city saw US$10.4 billion of real estate investment in 2017.
“In the US, despite three rate rises in the year to March 2018 (and a fourth since) average prices across the 15 cities included in our index increased by 6.8 per cent over the 12-month period. The comparable figure for the UK’s eight cities is 4.9 per cent with Edinburgh out in front and Aberdeen the weakest performer,” Knight Frank’s Kate Everett-Allen said.
See the full report here.
