According to property investment portal, Global Property Guide, whilst the global trend for house prices has been for an accelerating downturn as of Q1 2012, Estonia has been bucking that trend somewhat, even seeing something of an increase, at least as regards the y-o-y figure.
The Global Property Guide (GPG) stated that, of the 36 countries for which quarterly statistics are available, only 12 saw a y-o-y rise to Q1 2012. When looking at Q1 statistics compared with Q4 2011, the picture is even more stark, with only 10 counties seeing a rise in prices, and 26 seeing a fall, over that period.
These figures regard inflation-adjusted prices; nominal price statistics paint a rosier picture, with 20 countries seeing a y-o-y rise in prices.
Notable inflation-adjusted y-o-y price drops have been seen in Ireland (-18.9 per cent), Greece (-11.68 per cent), Poland (-10.94 per cent) and Portugal (-10.45 per cent), with Spain seeing a drop of -9 per cent y-o-y in line with that country’s economic woes.
Conversely, according to GPG, Estonia saw a rise in prices y-o-y to Q1 2012, of 9.13 per cent, the highest of any European country. Of the countries polled, only India, or more specifically Delhi at 24.41 per cent, and Brazil (São Paulo) at 18.70 per cent, saw a greater rise over the same period, though it has to be said that these increases were quite substantially higher than Estonia’s.
As regards the quarterly change, growth was much more sluggish as noted, and Estonia actually saw fall of -0.41 per cent as compared with Q1 2011, according to the GPG data.
Other countries to see significant y-o-y growth were Austria (8.24 per cent) Switzerland (5.49 per cent), Norway (5.43 per cent), Russia (3.86 per cent) and Iceland (2.25 per cent). Of these, Austria, Switzerland and Norway didn’t experience a house price slump in the first place, whereas Estonia, Russia and Iceland are seeing recovery.
The full report is available here.
Andrew Whyte
Tallinn Property by Goodson & Red
