Q2 2019: house price slowdown in Asia-Pacific, North America, and some parts of the Middle East, though Europe’s boom continues.
During the year to Q2 2019:
The global real estate boom continues, but is weakening. Real house prices (i.e., prices adjusted for inflation) rose in 26 out of the 46 world's housing markets which have so far published housing statistics.
The more upbeat nominal figures, more familiar to the public, showed house price rises in 41 countries, and declines in only 5 countries.
However after six years of strong house price growth, the U.S. housing market is cooling. The S&P/Case-Shiller seasonally-adjusted national home price index rose by just 1.46% during the year to Q2 2019 (inflation-adjusted). And according to FHFA numbers, U.S. housing markets fell slightly in the latest quarter.
More than half of our surveyed housing markets showed weaker momentum in Q2 2019 compared to the previous year, suggesting that global house price growth is now decelerating.
Underlying economic trends do not appear to favour a continuation of the property price boom. North America seems likely at the tail-end of its long economic expansion. Asia-Pacific appears weakened by the trade war. And the Middle East suffers from political tensions and weaker oil prices.
Yet most of Europe continues to experience strong house price rises.
The strongest housing markets in our global house price survey during the year to Q2 2019 included: Puerto Rico (+13.24%), Montenegro (+11.68%), Sri Lanka (+10.64%), Chile (+9.05%), and Germany (+8.21%), using inflation-adjusted figures.
The biggest y-o-y house-price declines were in Egypt (-21.51%), Turkey (-12.1%), Dubai, UAE (-6.86%), Kiev, Ukraine (-5.45%), and Pakistan (-4.35%), again using inflation-adjusted figures.
Momentum is weaker. Only 22 of the world’s housing markets for which figures are available showed stronger upward momentum during the year to Q2 2019, while 24 housing markets showed weaker momentum, according to Global Property Guide’s research. Momentum is a measure of the "change in the change"; simply put, momentum has increased if a property market has risen faster this year than last (or fallen less). Weaker momentum indicates, at least, that the housing boom isn't strengthening. In fact, global housing market momentum has been continuously weakening since Q1 2017.
Inflation-adjusted figures are used throughout this survey. In the case of Kiev, Ukraine, the Global Property Guide adjusts using the official U.S. inflation rate since Ukrainian secondary market dwelling sales are denominated in U.S. dollars.