Monaco beaten London as the world’s most expensive place to buy a home, as the UK recession cut into house prices in the British capital, a report has revealed.
While prices in Bangkok, Moscow and Jakarta showed the most growth, London was far from alone in experiencing a downturn in its housing market last year, the study, by Citi Private Bank and Knight Frank, found. Price growth had either stalled or fallen in the final quarter of 2008 in 75% of the locations surveyed.
“Even the world’s richest people have cut their discretionary spending, and most desirable prime residential property markets have now been affected by the global downturn,” said Liam Bailey, head of residential research at Knight Frank, which produced the report in conjunction with Citi Private Bank.
Bailey said the worsening global and local market conditions meant that throughout 2008, even the prospects for the world’s most expensive first-home markets – including London, New York, Hong Kong, Sydney and Singapore – weakened sharply.
Resilience
The most resilient prime markets last year tended to be found in the emerging economies – “notably Moscow (+13%), Jakarta (+18%) and Bangkok (+23%),” Bailey wrote.
“Even Dubai, which has been tipped for a crash for almost as long as it has been developing, managed to record growth of 11% in 2008, although by the fourth quarter prices were slipping substantially and our data revealed a 19% decline between Q3 and Q4,” noted Bailey.
