18/12/2007

World residential property prices slow down

The latest Knight Frank Global Price Index reveals that growth in residential property prices around the world is slowing. On an unweighted basis, prices globally rose by 8.2% per annum to Q3 2007 compared to 9.6% 12 months earlier. Rising interest rates have been a major factor in slowing house price growth, together with the tightening of lending criteria seen in many European countries.

In the UK annual growth in the 12 months to November stood at 30.6%, down from 34.1% in October and the high of 37.9% seen in August 2007. Knight Frank forecast that 3% is likely to be the level of growth in 2008 with London growth in line with the mainstream market but with the more expensive properties rising 5-10% still supported by a growing range of international buyers from oil and commodity rich countries such as Russia, Kazakhstan and the Middle East.

See www.knightfrank.com for further details. See also the feature on the UK property market in the winter issue of Re:locate, and watch out for our forthcoming article looking at guaranteed sale price schemes in spring 2008.

Back