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With annual house price growth of 3.8% over the 12 months from the third quarter of 2018 to the third quarter of 2019, South Africa ranks 24th out of 56 countries listed in the latest Knight Frank Prime Global House Price Index.
This is just above the average annual growth in house prices of the 56 countries in the index, which was 3.7% - the index's slowest rate of growth for over six years. According to the index report, this trend mirrors a pattern observed in Knight Frank's other global city indices – across both mainstream and prime segments.
In South Africa the 6-month growth in house prices up to the third quarter of 2019 was 2.3%, and 0.9% over the 3-month period up to the third quarter of last year.
The report indicates that 91% of the 56 countries listed had "static or positive" annual house price growth in the year to September 2019. Seven of the top ten rankings for the third quarter are European countries. Most of these are located in Central and Eastern Europe where, though house prices are rising from a low base, economies are strengthening and borrowing costs are close to record lows.
Hungary tops the third quarter annual house price growth list with annual growth of 15.5%. According to the index report, house price growth in Hungary is boosted by a robust economy, low mortgage rates, high wage growth and a range of government subsidy measures.
Luxembourg (11.4%) showed the second highest house price growth, followed by Croatia (10.4%); Latvia (9%); The Czech Republic (8.7%) and China (8.5%).
One of the countries the report makes specific mention of is Greece. A year ago, Greece was in 24th place on the ranking with house price growth of 2.4%. The report points out that, although house prices in Greece are still 37% below their 2008 peak, they are now rising at a rate of 7.7% per annum, putting Greece in 12th place out of 56 countries ranked.
