The world’s house prices have increased by an average of nearly 30% in real terms in the last 12 years, according to data from the Bank of International Settlements.
45 of 57 countries (80%) tracked by infographic creator Ehsan Soltani have seen house prices rise in real terms since 2010, with developed nations tending to see the highest rates of growth.
Iceland has seen the biggest growth – with average property values more than doubling between 2010 and 2022 (+103%). Other countries with big jumps (>85%) include Estonia, New Zealand, Chile, Turkey, Canada, and Luxembourg.
Countries with lower growth rates (sub-20% in real terms) include France, Belgium, Croatia, China and Singapore.
And some nations have seen prices fall in real terms. Russia, Greece, and Italy saw the largest contractions, with housing price declines of more than 20%.
These cases “allow us to see inflation in action,” note the team at Visual Capitalist (Ehsan Soltani and Pallavi Rao). “In Russia for example, despite real housing prices contracting by 33%, nominal prices (which don’t account for inflation) are up more than 50%. In South Africa, where real prices have fallen 5%, nominal prices are up 72%.”
N.B. Real prices assess the value of a good after adjusting for inflation. This is expressed in constant values relative to a base year, in this case, 2010. Nominal prices do not adjust for inflation.
