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Rich foreigners snapping up prime properties in several cities

GLOBAL property prices have mostly risen in the past twelve months, but a growing number of economists fear that the real estate boom is coming to an end.

In the past month, residential market in the United States has become sticky and there has been a sharp downturn in the construction of new housing.

Sellers from America’s west coast to east coast are finding that they have to mark down prices. Front-page stories about house and apartment price declines in the Wall Street Journal and other newspapers have made the market cautious.

Any global real estate slowdown, however, would come about after extraordinary gains in the past decade (see table).

‘Many commentators have been concerned that the boom in global prices would end in tears,’ says Liam Bailey, head of Knight Frank Residential agents. ‘Close attention has been paid to the US and to other European markets such as France and Ireland where price growth continued to expand last year.’

Bearish property commentators, however, have been concerned for several years and the market has frustrated their predictions by continuing to rise, Mr Bailey says.

A slowdown in the UK, Australia and New Zealand in 2003 and 2004 has been followed by a recovery. Mr Bailey expects price appreciation to taper off but does not agree with views of The Economist and others that there is a serious risk of the property price deflation that has been prevalent in Japan and Hong Kong.

‘Our forecast is that we will see continued slowing of average global house price growth over the rest of 2006 and into 2007,’ says Mr Bailey. ‘This broad trend will mask regional hot spots and investment opportunities.’

Knight Frank’s favoured location is Germany, which has been underperforming and should experience sustained growth from 2007. Following a real estate boom in Latvia, Bulgaria and Estonia, countries with the best potential for further growth in Eastern Europe are Slovenia and Slovakia, the firm contends. Moscow real estate should also do well and will ‘rival London as the most expensive world city within five years’.

Cities which attract a sizeable inflow of high net worth international business people, investment bankers, other traders and high net worth celebrities and other wealthy people, have very different property markets to the rest of their countries.

London is a prime example. The typical buyer of a two million euro (S$6 million)-plus home in central London is now more than likely to be a foreigner, according to Knight Frank. Just over half the houses and apartments in prime London areas have been sold to buyers from Russia, the Middle East, Asia, Europe and elsewhere.

Around 50 per cent of expensive properties in Singapore were also bought by foreigners, says Knight Frank.

In New York, foreign owners make up 34 per cent of sales in the prime residential market, ahead of Paris, where they account for 27 per cent. In Hong Kong and Sydney, foreigners contribute 13 per cent and 9 per cent respectively of prime residential deals.

Foreign buying explains why London prices have soared in the past year while the rest of the UK market has stagnated.

The local British populace has struggled to afford the surge in prices and is now worried about interest rate rises. Wealthy foreigners do not need to borrow. If an apartment or area takes their fancy, they can buy it for cash.

Source : Business Times - 30 Aug 2006