Foreign Property News | Posted by Shwe Zin Win
Malta outperformed 56 mainstream residential markets around the world in the second quarter, according to the latest Knight Frank Global House Price Index.
Hong Kong recorded a 15.9 percent rise in average home price in the year to June 2018, bested by Malta with a 16.9 percent change in the same period. It marks the European archipelago's first time on the summit of the quarterly index.
Overall, Central and Eastern Europe is emerging as a strong-performing region, with a growth of eight percent on average in Q2 2018 versus 5.1 percent for the rest of the continent, the report noted. Latvia, Slovenia and Hungary all gained between 12 percent and 14 percent in home prices.
Strengthening economies, improving employment and the wider availability of low rate mortgages buoyed the region to home price highs.
Hong Kong, in comparison, bore the brunt of property curbs during the period, including a vacancy tax imposed June on developers who leave their units unsold for six months or more.
Singapore and New Zealand, which have also seen new property market regulations in the last three months, placed ninth and 16th on the index with a 9.3 percent and 6.6 percent gain, respectively.
“With continued concerns around affordability and excessive price growth, the latest measures, along with the effects of rising interest rates, have already started to slow activity in both markets (Singapore and New Zealand).” said Nicholas Holt, head of research for Asia-Pacific at Knight Frank.
The index overall posted an growth of 4.7 percent, the slowest rate since the third quarter of 2016.
Ref: Propertyreport
