The Global Residential Cities Index tracks the movement in mainstream residential prices across 150 cities worldwide using official statistics.

The data in this report is backward looking and covers the period up to 31 March when Covid-19 was at its peak in parts of Asia but had yet to take its toll on large parts of Europe, North or South America.

As we’ve outlined in our regular Covid-19 daily updates since the start of the pandemic, we expect sales volumes to feel the impact of Covid-19 more than prices with employment protection schemes and mortgage holidays in many advanced economies likely to reduce the number of distressed sales and hence the likelihood of price falls.

Whilst the index’s overall performance may not drop significantly, we do expect the city rankings to look very different in six to 12 months’ time with those markets that have been effective in containing the pandemic, and where lockdowns were short-lived, most likely to show more resilience.

Manila leads the annual rankings for the second consecutive quarter with price
growth of 22% in the year to March 2020.

Budapest continues to lead European cities with growth of 16%. Zagreb and Warsaw make up the trio of Central and Eastern European cities in the top ten.