Knight Frank, the independent global property consultancy, today launches the Global Residential Cities Index for Q4 2017 which tracks the performance of mainstream house prices across 150 cities worldwide, of which 44 are from Asia-Pacific. This quarter also marks the inclusion of German cities for the first time.

Results for Q4 2017

• GRCI_Q4 2017_Fig4Average global prices increased by 4.5% in 2017, down from 7% a year earlier.
• Berlin – the only city on the index registering growth over 20% – led the annual rankings for 2017 with annual price growth of 20.5%.
• Chinese cities registered a marked slowdown in 2017 averaging 1.6% growth year-on-year; the same 15 cities averaged 23% growth in 2016.
• US cities averaged 6.3% growth in 2017, despite four rate rises since December 2016.
• Seville and Hong Kong stand out as the most improved markets in 2017.

Kate Everett-Allen, International Residential Research at Knight Frank, highlights, “At the end of 2016, 12 cities, most of them Chinese, registered price growth above 20%, a year later only one city falls into this category: Berlin.

“Germany’s capital leads the rankings with prices ending the year 20.5% higher. Strong population growth, a stable economy, record low unemployment and robust interest from overseas investors are together propelling prices higher.”

Nicholas Holt, Head of Research for Asia-Pacific, Knight Frank Asia-Pacific, explains, “2017 saw Asia-Pacific residential city markets slow from the previous years, with just six markets seeing double-digit annual price growth – down from 22 cities in the previous year.

“Most notably, no Chinese cities made it to the Top 10 chart on the index when there were nine 12 months previously – evidently, policy maker’s attempts in China to cool residential markets with tougher home purchase restrictions and tighter lending criteria have impacted the price performance of the cities.  On the other hand, Hong Kong continued to be the regional outlier as it registered a 14.8% year-on-year growth in 2017 compared to just 4.2% for the whole of 2016.

“With tighter liquidity, extensive cooling measures and the start of global monetary policy normalisation, we expect growth for most cities in the region to remain subdued.”

Source: Knight Frank

Click here to download the Knight Frank Global Residential Cities Index Q4 2017

For more information or to discuss the report email Kate Everett-Allen from Knight Frank International Residential Research via the contact details below. 

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