There has been a substantial rebound in house prices since 2010, with most countries in Europe, North America and Asia well above their 2010 prices as widely reported in the media. However most reporting sensationalises the numbers by failing to take inflation into account. This is disingenuous in two ways – it fails to account for the real decline during the 2008 crisis when houses fell in nominal value (the actual decline was steeper when you account for inflation) and the subsequent recovery where widely reported nominal value increases include inflation. To look at where prices are in relation to 2010, I’ve calculated the real change in house prices – that is, the nominal change minus inflation from March 2010 to Dec 2018. There is no doubt that most countries have recovered and then some. Leading the pack, Hong Kong has posted a whopping 70% real return, while Turkey with its on-going inflation and currency crisis has returned -72% over 8 years and -90% over the last two years. The data was taken from the Bank for International Settlements (BIS – direct link to data at the end of this post). I’ve taken data for existing residential dwellings across entire countries where possible. This masks differences between larger cities vs the rest of the country, especially in larger countries. Think New York or San Francisco vs the rest of the US or London vs the rest of the UK – I’ll be exploring this in a later post. If the graph images are difficult to see, I’ve provided links to the full size charts above each chart.
Full size chart (Real Return on House Prices 2010-2018)
Real returns from 2010-2018
This is all well and good for people who bought property in 2010, but what about now? In the two years since 2016, Slovenia has delivered a real house price return of 27% while Malta returned 26%, while prices nearly halved in Turkey with a return of -93%. Greece, though still negative, moved up significantly from nearly -50% to -1.82%
Full size chart (Real Return on House Prices 2016-2018)
Real returns from 2016-2018
The chart below allows comparisons between countries. Select countries on the left to compare and mouseover the lines on the chart to see additional information
Real returns from 2010-2018
It’d be noisy to put all countries on the same chart, so I’ve broken it down into a few groups.
Starting with the Anglosphere
BRICs – Wide Divergence
Possible Recoveries – Turkey, Greece, Cyprus, U.A.E. and Spain
Full Chart – Recovery Countries
Asia – Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines
Western Europe – Germany, France, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Malta, Portugal
Benelux – Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg
Nordics – Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Iceland
Eastern Europe – Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary
Latin America – Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Chile
House Price Returns 2010-2018
| Country | Real Return % | Nominal Return % | Inflation % |
| Hong Kong SAR | 70.89 | 99.69 | 28.80 |
| Peru | 59.26 | 84.74 | 25.47 |
| India | 56.84 | 106.64 | 49.79 |
| Malaysia | 49.20 | 69.03 | 19.83 |
| Iceland | 48.66 | 73.34 | 24.67 |
| Estonia | 46.08 | 65.86 | 19.77 |
| New Zealand | 41.68 | 55.34 | 13.65 |
| China | 41.43 | 62.65 | 21.21 |
| Malta | 41.08 | 54.86 | 13.78 |
| Latvia | 40.90 | 55.38 | 14.47 |
| Israel | 39.56 | 48.47 | 8.91 |
| Sweden | 37.34 | 47.07 | 9.73 |
| Austria | 31.65 | 48.18 | 16.52 |
| Luxembourg | 30.46 | 44.25 | 13.79 |
| Chile | 25.57 | 52.76 | 27.18 |
| Norway | 24.90 | 42.14 | 17.24 |
| United States | 24.81 | 39.23 | 14.41 |
| Germany | 23.94 | 34.90 | 10.96 |
| Hungary | 22.48 | 40.47 | 17.98 |
| Czech Republic | 21.44 | 34.91 | 13.47 |
| Thailand | 21.35 | 33.74 | 12.39 |
| Switzerland | 18.30 | 17.47 | -0.83 |
| Denmark | 18.02 | 27.10 | 9.07 |
| Lithuania | 17.80 | 33.76 | 15.95 |
| Ireland | 15.82 | 22.03 | 6.20 |
| Mexico | 15.74 | 49.65 | 33.90 |
| Australia | 13.81 | 31.99 | 18.17 |
| United Kingdom | 13.42 | 32.35 | 18.92 |
| Slovak Republic | 12.20 | 24.47 | 12.27 |
| Portugal | 10.51 | 21.19 | 10.68 |
| United Arab Emirates | 9.77 | 24.88 | 15.10 |
| Slovenia | 6.87 | 16.88 | 10.00 |
| Belgium | 4.98 | 20.96 | 15.98 |
| Bulgaria | 4.04 | 16.66 | 12.62 |
| Singapore | 3.61 | 18.37 | 14.75 |
| France | 2.74 | 11.80 | 9.06 |
| Canada | 2.57 | 16.97 | 14.39 |
| Indonesia | 1.97 | 43.91 | 41.94 |
| Brazil | -0.05 | 50.57 | 50.62 |
| Finland | -0.85 | 10.63 | 11.47 |
| Poland | -2.00 | 10.68 | 12.67 |
| Japan | -4.80 | 0.00 | 4.79 |
| Netherlands | -5.03 | 7.58 | 12.60 |
| Croatia | -7.36 | 1.64 | 9.00 |
| South Africa | -9.90 | 34.49 | 44.38 |
| Philippines | -14.52 | 11.53 | 26.05 |
| Macedonia | -19.48 | -7.20 | 12.27 |
| Spain | -21.49 | -9.66 | 11.83 |
| Romania | -24.16 | -3.11 | 21.05 |
| Italy | -27.25 | -17.14 | 10.11 |
| Cyprus | -31.20 | -27.70 | 3.50 |
| Saudi Arabia | -35.66 | -16.60 | 19.05 |
| Greece | -49.73 | -45.82 | 3.91 |
| Russia | -62.38 | -3.43 | 58.94 |
| Turkey | -72.47 | 8.00 | 80.46 |
House Price Returns 2016-2018
| Country | Real Return % | Nominal Return % | Inflation % |
| Slovenia | 26.99 | 31.29 | 4.30 |
| Malta | 26.22 | 31.05 | 4.83 |
| Iceland | 26.17 | 33.13 | 6.96 |
| Hong Kong SAR | 25.72 | 30.38 | 4.65 |
| Ireland | 24.98 | 26.10 | 1.12 |
| Portugal | 22.09 | 24.74 | 2.64 |
| Czech Republic | 21.23 | 26.97 | 5.74 |
| Latvia | 19.74 | 26.35 | 6.61 |
| Hungary | 19.30 | 26.04 | 6.73 |
| Luxembourg | 14.89 | 19.15 | 4.26 |
| Slovak Republic | 14.58 | 18.72 | 4.13 |
| Bulgaria | 13.63 | 20.11 | 6.48 |
| China | 13.42 | 17.32 | 3.90 |
| New Zealand | 12.42 | 17.05 | 4.62 |
| Netherlands | 11.94 | 15.55 | 3.60 |
| Germany | 10.92 | 15.06 | 4.13 |
| Spain | 10.91 | 16.45 | 5.53 |
| Estonia | 10.51 | 18.08 | 7.57 |
| Poland | 10.38 | 15.06 | 4.67 |
| Denmark | 10.20 | 12.10 | 1.89 |
| United States | 9.37 | 14.74 | 5.36 |
| India | 9.30 | 19.97 | 10.67 |
| Croatia | 8.92 | 11.67 | 2.74 |
| Lithuania | 7.93 | 15.03 | 7.10 |
| Austria | 7.23 | 12.66 | 5.43 |
| Romania | 7.10 | 13.97 | 6.87 |
| Thailand | 5.80 | 7.97 | 2.16 |
| France | 5.13 | 8.54 | 3.40 |
| Mexico | 5.12 | 18.79 | 13.66 |
| Singapore | 5.05 | 6.35 | 1.29 |
| Malaysia | 5.01 | 11.27 | 6.25 |
| United Kingdom | 4.72 | 11.39 | 6.67 |
| Belgium | 4.62 | 9.99 | 5.37 |
| Chile | 3.91 | 10.25 | 6.33 |
| Sweden | 2.54 | 7.56 | 5.01 |
| Norway | 2.36 | 9.27 | 6.91 |
| Israel | 2.04 | 4.06 | 2.01 |
| Australia | 1.98 | 7.31 | 5.32 |
| Canada | 0.77 | 5.00 | 4.22 |
| Finland | 0.69 | 3.29 | 2.60 |
| Philippines | -0.01 | 10.20 | 10.20 |
| Cyprus | -0.23 | 2.68 | 2.91 |
| Indonesia | -1.47 | 7.55 | 9.01 |
| Japan | -1.80 | 0.00 | 1.79 |
| Greece | -1.82 | 0.66 | 2.47 |
| Switzerland | -3.09 | -1.66 | 1.43 |
| Italy | -4.29 | -1.60 | 2.68 |
| Peru | -6.17 | -0.58 | 5.58 |
| Macedonia | -6.25 | -3.08 | 3.17 |
| South Africa | -8.01 | 4.68 | 12.68 |
| Russia | -10.55 | -0.68 | 9.87 |
| Brazil | -11.37 | -1.25 | 10.12 |
| Saudi Arabia | -16.10 | -15.54 | 0.55 |
| United Arab Emirates | -17.17 | -12.39 | 4.78 |
| Turkey | -93.97 | -57.31 | 36.65 |
Data Sources
Data taken from the Bank for International Settlements (BIS)