Hong Kong still the world's priciest housing market

Average property price is at $9.69m or $16,400 per sqft.

Hong Kong maintains its position as the world’s most expensive residential market with an average property costing $9.69m or $16,400 per sqft (US$1.235m or US$2,091 per sqft), according to CBRE’s annual Global Living report.

Despite the introduction of cooling measures such as the vacancy tax, home prices continued to grow 5.5% in 2018. Rental growth also rose 8% over the same period.

Singapore trailed behind Hong Kong as the average price of properties cost, $6.86m or $8337 per sqft (US$874,372 or US$1,063 per sqft).

In a show of Chinese dominance, Shanghai nabs third place at $6.84m or $5600 per sqft (US$872,555 or US$714 per sq ft). Shenzhen, and Beijing took the fifth and ninth place with $5.33m (US$680,283) and $4.93m (US$629,276) respectively.

Meanwhile, CBRE also noted that average house prices are growing in 30 out of 35 cities. The biggest year-on-year growth was experienced in double-digits by Barcelona (16.9%), Dublin (11.6%), Shanghai (11.2%) and Madrid (10.2%).

“We would expect increasing interest rates to be affecting cities in the US and various cooling measures affecting the Asia Pacific region, although Shanghai still saw robust growth,” said Jennet Siebrits, head of residential research at CBRE UK.

The research also highlighted considerable rental growth in many European cities, including Lisbon, Madrid, Dublin and Barcelona. Supply constraints and increasing demand were amongst the factors leading to Lisbon and Madrid’s continuing double digit rental growth.