India down 12 spots in global home price index: Knight Frank

India has moved down 12 spots in the global home price index to the 55th position in Q1 2021 against 43rd rank in Q1 2020, with a decline of 1.6% year-on-year (YoY) in home prices, according to property consultant Knight Frank’s research report – Global House Price Index – Q1 2021.

India gained a spot, compared to last quarter (Q4 2020), where India ranked last globally amongst the 56 countries ranked by the index.

Shishir Baijal, Chairman & Managing Director, Knight Frank India said in a statement, “In Q1 2021, India witnessed meaningful recovery in sales volumes, helping housing prices remain stable. In the preceding quarters the residential markets had been on a path of rebound with markets such as Mumbai and Pune achieving pre-Covid levels of activities.”

US reports highest growth

With respect to 6-month (Q3 2020 – Q1 2021) and 3-month (Q4 2020 – Q1 2021) changes, residential prices in India witnessed a growth of 0.6% and 1.4%, respectively. The report highlighted that the United States witnessed the highest annual price growth rate since 2005, with a 13.2% increase YoY.

The Global House Price Index tracks the movement in mainstream residential prices across 56 countries and territories worldwide using official statistics. In the 12-month percentage change for Q1 2020 – Q1 2021, Turkey continues to lead the annual rankings with prices up by 32% YoY, followed by New Zealand at 22.1% YoY and Luxembourg with 16.6% YoY. Spain was the weakest-performing territory in Q1 2021, where home prices fell by 1.8% YoY, followed by India with -1.6%.

Mainstream residential prices averaged across 56 countries and territories in Q1 2021 grew by 7.3%, which records the fastest growth in prices since Q4 2006.

“However, with the onset of the second wave and the threat of new variants of the virus along with the fluctuation in vaccine rollout there could be a pressure on sales volumes as well as on price growth,” Baijal said.