Knight Frank: Luxury house prices falling fastest in Asia Pacific

LONDON (Feb 8): The value of prime property in the world's key cities rose by only 0.2% in the final quarter of 2011 with luxury housing prices in Asia Pacific falling fastest.

Although the Knight Frank Prime Global Cities Index 4Q 2011, which tracks the performance of the world's leading luxury residential markets, rose by 3% during 2011, the second half of the year saw the pace of growth slow considerably.

The luxury housing market is now seeing the pace of price growth slip for the second time since the 2008/09 global financial crisis. In this latest cycle, annual price growth peaked at 11.5% in 2Q 2010, but has since slowed each quarter, said Knight Frank.

Post the Lehman collapse, European and North American cities were largely responsible for the index's slump. Since late 2010, it has been the Asian cities that have dampened price inflation. In 2Q 2010, prices in Asia Pacific were rising at an average 23.6% each year, the comparable figure now stands at -1%. Nairobi (up 25%) was the strongest performer during 2011 while prices in Mumbai fell the most (-18%).

The real estate consultancy attributed the price dips to anti-inflationary price cooling measures implemented by Asian governments, and caution that the eurozone sovereign debt crisis will affect the global economy.

The slowdown in the luxury Asian markets has highlighted the extent to which the "old-world" cities of London, New York City and Moscow are outperforming the overall index.

London and Moscow have ranked highly for several quarters but Manhattan's recovery is gathering momentum. Foreign demand for New York City's luxury homes is not only strengthening, but is also starting to diversify with Chinese nationals increasingly evident, particularly in the US$1 million-US$3 million sector.

Paddy Dring, head of Knight Frank's International team, said: "Despite cooling price growth in the second half of 2011, the world's prime markets continue to outperform their mainstream housing markets, providing some justification for their safe-haven reputations. The flight of capital towards the world's luxury neighbourhoods increased in 2011 as geo-political events in the Middle East and North Africa took hold and the tumultuous global economy weakened the viability of a number of alternative asset classes."

Price growth in 2012 will continue to be underpinned by this flight of capital from troubled world regions. This, combined with a desire amongst wealthy investors to target property and other real assets over financial products, will reaffirm prime property's safe-haven qualities in 2012.