Amid world house price slump, Berlin tops global city growth ahead of London, Hong Kong and New York
London is not alone in its recent housing price slump – according to new research, the phenomenon is global.
The analysis, published today by property consulting group Knight Frank, shows that average global property prices increased by 4.5 per cent in 2017, down from seven per cent the year before.
There is one city that has bucked the trend however. Berlin came out on top out of 150 cities measured by the study, with prices in the German capital ending 21 per cent higher. A growth in population, the stable German economy, low unemployment and increased investment have combined to elevate prices in Europe’s coolest capital.
Cities with steepest price growth, 2017
1 Berlin 20.5 per cent
2 Izmir – 18.5 per cent
3 Reykjavik – 16.6 per cent
4 Vancouver – 16.0 per cent
5 Hong Kong – 14.8 per cent
6 Budapest – 15.5 per cent
7 Hamburg – 14.1 per cent
8 Munich – 13.8 per cent
9 Rotterdam – 13.4 per cent
10 Frankfurt – 13.4 per cent
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London, meanwhile, slipped all the way down to 101, with only a two per cent increase in prices last year. The best performing city in the UK was Edinburgh, which recorded a price growth of 10.3 per cent last year. It’s neighbor Glasgow also recorded strong growth at 8.8 per cent.
“With fiscal stimulus being withdrawn, capital controls in place in China, and the beginning of a shift towards the normalisation of monetary policy, annual price growth above 20 per cent is now confined to only a few outliers,” said Kinght Frank’s Kate Everett-Allen. “At the end of 2016, 12 cities, most of them Chinese, registered price growth above 20 per cent, a year later only one city falls into this category; Berlin.”
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Other results from the survey show that Iceland had the strongest rising house prices among countries overall, while Peru had the weakest growth in 2017. Despite four interest rate rises in the last 18 months in the US, house prices across the country continue to grow, with Seattle and San Francisco out in front.