NZ among fastest-growing global markets: Survey

The survey by the Global Property Guide of official house price statistics looked at property market performance over the year to the first quarter of 2014.

It said the global house price boom had continued over the period and was gathering pace, although the momentum seemed to be passing momentarily in Asia.

“Instead, action is shifting to the Pacific, the Gulf and, less forcefully, to Europe," the report said,

The survey used inflation-adjusted figures and found 30 housing markets of the 45 that had published data showed stronger upward momentum in the first quarter of 2014 than in the same period last year.
Only 15 markets showed weaker momentum.

“The global house price boom continues to accelerate, with most countries back to their pre-crisis levels. House prices are rising in many more countries than not, and the momentum trend is strongly upwards. In fact, many housing markets are now considered overvalued. Several countries are now imposing housing market cooling measures to avoid a repeat of the past,” the report said.

It noted that New Zealand’s median house prices rose 8.36% during the year to the end of the first quarter of 2012,  after year-on-year rises of 8.02% in the last quarter of 2013, 6.4% in the third quarter, 5.11% in the second quarter, and 7.19% in the first quarter of last year.

In the first quarter of this year, house prices increased by 2.66% from the previous quarter.

But the survey noted that demand continue to fall, and said that was largely due to Reserve Bank restrictions on high loan-to-value lending.

Dubai was the standout performer in the survey, with a 31.57% increase in prices to the year to the end of the first quarter. In the first quarter of 2013, prices had increased 17.91% year-on-year.

Austria, Malaysia, Israel, Indonesia, Finland, Singapore, Norway, France, Hong Kong, Ukraine and Russia reported drops in property market growth, year-on-year. Israel's housing market slowed sharply. The average price of owner-occupied dwellings rose by just 1.85% during the year to Q1 2014, a sharp slowdown from an annual rise of 8.21% in Q1 2013.