European house prices grow as asia and USA slow

Dublin, Ireland Photo: Darragh

European house prices are booming, as Asian and US markets suffer a slowdown.

Ireland is now the world's top performer, confirms Global Property Guide's review of property value indixes. House prices surged by 16.62 per cent in the country during 2014, a far quicker rise than the 6.18 per cent recorded in 2013.

In all, 17 European markets saw house prices rise more during 2014 than the previous year, and only five showed weaker performance. Estonia also posted substantial rises, with Tallinn's average dwelling prices surging by 12.59 per cent during 2014, after increases of 16.55 per cent in 2013.

In Sweden, house prices rose by 8.78 per cent in 2014, after 3.8 per cent in 2013. In Turkey, house prices rose by 8.05 per cent in 2014, up from 5.73 per cent the previous year. The UK property market also performed strongly, with nationwide house prices rising by 7.33 per cent in 2014, a significant increase on 4.88 per cent the previous year.

Other strong European housing markets include Iceland, with house prices rising by 5.18 per cent during 2014, Netherlands (4.12 per cent), Riga, Latvia (3.7 per cent), Lithuania (3.61 per cent) and Norway (3.61 per cent). All of these European countries' prices rose more in 2014 than the previous year. Moreover, all, except Norway, saw positive q-o-q growth in Q4 2014.

European housing markets with modest house price rises included Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Switzerland and Croatia. Others, such as Spain and Portugal, saw price declines slow, as the markets bottomed out or stabilised.

Only seven of the 22 European housing markets included in Global Property Guide's survey saw house price falls in 2014.

"The world is now two-speed," concludes the report. "While house prices have continued to rise in the United States, and in Dubai, Australia, New Zealand and Brazil, momentum in almost all of these countries has weakened. Dubai's house prices rose by 12.98 per cent in 2014, the second greatest rise; but its house price rises have rapidly decelerated and may be going into reverse.

"Asia has also generally weakened, with Japan and Hong Kong significant exceptions. In fact, China and Singapore's housing markets are now two of the five weakest markets in our global survey."