Average annual house price growth across the 56 markets covered by the Knight Frank Global House Price Index slowed to 3.6% in the 12 months to the end of the first quarter of 2023.

Looking at the time horizon, it appears that house prices are rising at the “slowest annual pace” since the third quarter of 2015”, they conclude in a statement sent to newsrooms. The rise in house prices globally has thus come down from the recent peak of 11.1% recorded in the first quarter of 2022 (last 12 months), when global markets were expanding in the aftermath of the pandemic.

Analysing data for the last year ending in the first quarter of 2023, it appears that house prices have risen in most countries (in 39 of the 56 analysed). In the first place is Turkey, where prices rose 132.8%, as a result of “galloping inflation”. The top 3 with the biggest rises in house prices are rounded off with North Macedonia (18.8%) and Croatia (17.3%).

Portugal appears in the top 10 of the index of markets where prices have grown the most in the last year (11.4%). In other southern European countries, however, house prices rose at a much slower pace: Spain (3.1%) and Italy (1.1%).

What also stands out is that house prices have fallen in 17 countries around the world, eight of which have contracted more than 5%, with South Korea (-15.7%), New Zealand (-13%), Hong Kong (-10.3%) and Sweden (-8.8%) leading the declines.