Rocking all over the world

The latest global house price index from Knight Frank highlights the extent to which the credit crisis has affected housing markets worldwide...

According to the estate agent, over 80 per cent of the locations studied recorded negative price growth in the final three months of 2008, compared with 27 per cent in the same period of 2007.

House prices did increase by over 10 per cent in seven countries (all within Europe, the Middle East and Africa) although six of these countries are now seeing values fall.

In Dubai prices rose by almost 60 per cent, but Knight Frank predicts that much of the gain may be wiped out in 2009.

Last year, Latvia saw the biggest annual and quarterly falls, with prices down 33.5 per cent over the year.

In its report, Knight Frank raises questions about official house price data for the final quarter of 2008, which it says may not reflect the true extent of the decline in certain countries.

The estate agent's Head of International Residential Research, Nicholas Barnes, comments, "Predicting how much further markets will fall during 2009 is virtually impossible.

"While every market is being buffeted by the contagion effect of the global economic downturn, the scale and the duration of the impact upon individual countries will vary."

He adds, "It is not safe to conclude that just because one country entered the downturn ahead of another, that it will automatically recover more quickly."

Source: www.homemove.co.uk