Cities are now outpacing their national housing markets with prices rising by 9.8% on average in the year to Q2 2021, this compares to an average of 9.2% across 55 countries and territories. 

The Canadian city of Halifax leads the quarterly Global House Price Index by Knight Frank in Q2, with price growth of 30.8% per annum. 

Some 57 (38%) of the 150 cities tracked saw prices rise by 10% or more over the 12-month period. Two years ago, six Chinese mainland cities fell into this bracket, now only Guangzhou meets the criteria (11.4%), the firm says.

The Evergrande debacle has cast a shadow over once surging urban house prices in China. Although the gravity of the situation only emerged in Q3 this year, there was evidence of a slowdown in price growth in Q2 also and sales activity in China continued to slow in Q3. 

Kate Everett-Allan at Knight Frank said: “The scale of the divergence in US and Chinese mainland house prices is significant. We track 15 cities in both markets and on average those on the Chinese mainland saw prices rise by 5.6% over the 12-month period whilst US cities saw prices jump by 19.6%. Aside from US cities, other urban hotspots include those in Canada, South Korea, New Zealand and Russia.”