IRELAND slid to the bottom of estate agency Knight Frank’s global house price index in the third quarter of 2011, putting us at 51st place, below Ukraine and Russia.
The survey, which covers house price growth across 51 countries, shows that Irish house prices – down 14.3 per cent on the same quarter in 2010 – fell the most of all countries surveyed for the second quarter running.
In the previous survey, for the second quarter of 2011, Ireland came 50th out of the 50 countries surveyed with a drop of -12.9 per cent over the previous year.
The good news is that Ireland no longer has had the biggest recorded drop in prices globally during this third quarter. Prices fell most during Q3 in Jersey at -5.0 per cent, with Ireland following behind with its drop of -3.8 per cent.
Overall, the index, which tracks the performance of the world’s main housing markets, showed zero growth in the three months to September, the index’s weakest performance since the second quarter of 2009.
Prices in Hong Kong – which heads the list – rose by 19.3 per cent between Q3 2010 and Q3 2011. But Knight Frank says deflationary measures in Asia have seen annual price growth there fall from 15.2 per cent in the first quarter of 2010 to 6.9 per cent in the last quarter.
