The Global Property Guide, a leading website in property market information, has recently performed a survey, analysing the property developments during the first pandemic year 2020. It found that global house prices are increasing in 40 out of 53 major housing markets around the world, basing itself on statistics published at the time of the survey.
The results of the survey come when “the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has revised its 2021 growth forecast for the global economy to 5.5%, an upgrade from its previous estimate of a 5.2% expansion, amidst accelerated vaccine distribution and the influx of new government stimulus efforts in many countries. The global economy contracted by 3.5% in 2020.”, according to the property market information publisher.
Global Property Guide research found that:
- “Real house prices (i.e., prices adjusted for inflation) rose in 40 out of the 53 world’s housing markets which have so far published housing statistics. The more upbeat nominal figures, more familiar to the public, showed house price rises in 45 countries, and declines in only 8 countries.
- After an abrupt pause in H1 due to pandemic-related restrictions, transaction volumes in many countries recovered strongly in H2.
- New demand is coming from more properties being bought outside cities. Demand has further been boosted by record low interest rates, as well as quantitative easing.
- House prices have accelerated specially in developed countries, where mortgage finance is important.
- The North American housing market is booming. The Federal Housing Finance Agency’s seasonally-adjusted purchase-only U.S. house price index rose by 9.42% y-o-y in 2020 (inflation-adjusted), the biggest y-o-y increase ever recorded, amidst strong demand and construction activity buoyed by very low interest rates and massive government stimulus spending. All this, despite the U.S. being the new epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak. Likewise in Canada, house prices in the country’s eleven major cities rose by 8.57% during 2020, in contrast to a y-o-y fall of 0.29% in the previous year.
- Strong house price surges have taken place in European countries, such as Slovak Republic, Turkey, Germany, Estonia, Sweden, and Russia.
- Asia-Pacific is gaining momentum, with notable performances from New Zealand, Sri Lanka, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan and China.”
Global Property Guide research further specifies that “the strongest housing markets in our global house price survey during 2020 included: New Zealand (+16.77%), Sri Lanka (+15.47%), Puerto Rico (+14.59%), Slovak Republic (+14.28%), and Turkey (+13.7%), using inflation-adjusted figures, which are used throughout this survey.
The biggest y-o-y house price declines were in Makati CBD, Philippines (-16.11%), Egypt (-14.38%), Montenegro (-10.45%), Phnom Penh, Cambodia (-8.8%), and Qatar (-4.78), again using inflation-adjusted figures.”
Source: Global Property Guide
Original article edited by Thijs Stoffer
