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Buying investment property in North America offers greatest room for growth
Date:-01-July-2011
Buying investment property in North America offers greatest room for growth
The latest Knight Frank Global House Price Index for the first quarter of 2011 (Q1) reveals that North America remained the weakest region in the world, but suggests that it potentially offers the greatest opportunities for buying investment property.
While booming property prices in Asia and other parts of the world start to slow, signs are that values in the North America, particularly in the USA, are set to improve moving forward.
The average price of a home in North America fell by 0.4% in Q1, compared to slower global residential property price growth of 1.8% in the year to March 2011, the lowest annual rate of global price growth recorded since Q4 2009.
In regional terms, Asia remains the top-performing continent, recording 8.4% growth over the last 12 months. However, this is down from 17.8% a year earlier.
While house prices in Europe were static in Q1, this represents an improvement on 12 months earlier when residential property prices on average had fallen by 4.1% in the preceding 12 months.
The strongest performing countries for buying investment property and regular home buyers were: Hong Kong (24.2%), where the government is fighting to pull inflationary pressures under control; India (21.9%) and Taiwan (14.3%).
Liam Bailey, head of residential research at Knight Frank, says: “Price growth, while not stalling, has faltered in Q1 2011. In Q4 2010 overall annual price growth stood at 3.3%. Three months later this shrank to 1.8%.
“We expect to see the current slowdown in global housing markets to continue, hitting a low point in Q4 2011, which means less people buying investment property. Assuming the Asian markets continue to cool and the government intervention is successful - but with a slow recovery in global house prices taking place in 2012.”
