Global Residential Real Estate

Background:

Many countries across the world that witnessed significant appreciation in the real estate sector since the late 1990s saw a decline in prices, home sales and construction activity as the global financial crisis unfolded and gave way to a global economic downturn. In some countries, the decline was more precipitous, such as in the U.S., where by mid-2009, prices had corrected by 33% from their peak and the U.K., where prices corrected by over 20%. Sharp declines were also seen in Ireland, Latvia, Estonia, Dubai, South Africa, Singapore, while prices fell less severely in countries like Canada and emerging markets like India and Brazil. In countries like Germany and Switzerland, residential real estate remained resilient, with prices having shown relative stability during the runup to the downturn. Many housing markets have shown signs of thawing by mid-2009 and real estate prices have shown increases in China and other Asian markets, Brazil, Australia, Israel etc. On the other hand, further downward correction is likely to continue in countries like Spain where fundamental weaknesses remain and where prices have been relatively slow to adjust till date.