Iceland and Hong Kong – the World’s Hottest Housing Markets

Polar opposites if you pardon the pun - Iceland and Hong Kong have topped Knight Frank’s Global House Price Index for Q1 2017.

The glacial island nation and Chinese SAR posted an average price growth of 17.8 percent and 14.4 percent, respectively, in the year to March 2017, leading nine other countries that posted double-digit price growth during the period tracked. A year earlier, only four countries fell into this bracket.

Around 9,000 new apartments need to be delivered over the next three years in Reykjavik alone to keep pace with demand, according to Kate Everett-Allen, partner with International Residential Research at Knight Frank, citing data from Iceland’s Housing Financing Fund.

Hong Kong continues to see price growth despite newly introduced lending restrictions. However, property curbs seem to have done its intended effect in mainland China, which dropped from seventh place to 10th worldwide on the index with a 10.3 percent growth. The headline national figure is somewhat tempered by weaker growth in some of the smaller Tier-3 and Tier-4 cities.

Prices in 55 countries were monitored in the index, which grew 6.5 percent between Q1 2016 and Q1 2017, its highest growth rate in the past three years. Three of the top 10 strongest growing markets globally were in Asia-Pacific at the end of the first quarter of 2017.