With price growth in Dubai and much of Asia slowing, the Knight Frank Global House Price Index has lost its main engines of growth resulting in a rise of just 0.1% in the third quarter of 2014.

Kate Everett-Allen says of the index’s weak performance: “For the first time in two years the Global House Price Index came close to falling into negative territory. Muted growth in the third quarter comes on the back of jitters over the global economy, a lingering malaise in Europe and, in the US, a slower-than expected housing recovery.

“Ireland now tops our rankings, having languished at the foot of the table for most of 2009 to 2012. Prices increased by 15% in the year to September but remain 39% below their pre-crisis peak in 2007.”

According to the index, Hong Kong and Dubai have both seen price growth slow. Dubai mainstream residential prices fell by 5.2% in the three months to September – the emirate’s first quarterly decline in prices in the last four years.

Meanwhile, China’s slowdown continued with 58 of the 70 cities tracked by the National Bureau of Statistics recording price falls in the year to September.