The world’s most bubbly housing markets
Swiss bank UBS has compiled an index of the most bubbly housing markets in the world. No prizes for guessing who comes top.
House prices are bubbling over in several of the world's top cities, says UBS, which has created a Global Real Estate Bubble Indexto measure the potential for housing bubbles. Here are the five most at risk, with their index score. A score over 1.5 is a "bubble risk", while a score between 0.5 and 1.5 is "overvalued".
1. London 1.88
UBS reckons London is the most overvalued market, based bothon price-to-income and price-to-rent ratios. Average real (afterinflation)dwelling prices are up by almost 40% since the startof 2013, more than offsetting all financial-crisis-related losses.House prices no longer bare any resemblance to local householdearnings due to purchases for investment purposes by both localand global buyers.
2. Hong Kong 1.67
3. Sydney 1.39
4. Vancouver 1.35
5. San Francisco 1.15
Subscribe to MoneyWeek
Subscribe to MoneyWeek today and get your first six magazine issues absolutely FREE
Sign up to Money Morning
Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter
Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter
Marina has a PhD in globalisation and the media from the London School of Economics, where she worked as a teaching assistant on the MSc Global Media. In 2014 she was invited to be a visiting scholar at Columbia University's sociology department in New York.
She has written for the Economists’ Intelligent Life magazine, the Financial Times, the Times Literary Supplement, and Standpoint magazine in the UK; the New York Observer in the US; and die Bild and Frankfurter Rundschau in Germany. She is trilingual and lives in London. She writes features and is the markets editor at MoneyWeek..
-
Revealed: UK’s biggest ISAs stand at more than £11.6 million each
The top 25 ISAs are worth an average of £11,660,000 each, according to HMRC data - bigger than the country’s largest pension pot. We uncover the secrets of the ISA millionaires.
By Ruth Emery Published
-
Copycat banking websites on the rise - how to spot one
Over 2,000 banking copycat websites were reported as phishing scams in 2023, according to Which? But how do you know if the banking site you're about to use is real?
By Oojal Dhanjal Published