The world’s housing markets remain under intense pressure, a state of affairs which seems likely to continue according to the latest Knight Frank report on global housing markets.
The economic recession is continuing to batter markets all over the world and buyer demand and confidence remains at extremely low levels, although there is some evidence of buyers snapping up relative bargains with others waiting for clearer signs the bottom has been reached.
From the data which has been received Israel is top of the property market table, having registered growth of 10.9% over Q1 of 2009, while the Czech Republic comes second with growth of 9.9%, and Jersey posted positive growth of 6.9% while Dubai, Latvia and Singapore saw the worst falls of 32%, 36% and 23% respectively.
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The UK just made it into the bottom five, showing overall falls of 16.5% with only the US worse off, registering falls of 16.9%.
Other EU countries reported the following results for the first quarter:
* Ireland -10.0%
* Italy 0.1%
* Cyprus -2.2%
* Croatia -4.5%
* Portugal -5.9%
* Spain -6.8%
‘Nick Barnes from Knight Frank said: ‘The shorter term future direction of most underlying economies suggests that the world’s residential markets are likely to continue to suffer for some while.’
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