The Global Housing Market: What’s Hot, What’s Not

It is never too easy to predict where exactly you should expand your real estate portfolio. Some places seem to always be an upward trajectory, only up until the point when they’re not, and the house of cards all come crashing down. Take London, for example, which has been on an almost off the chart upward curve in the past few years. There are people who have tripled the value of their investment without meaning to: for one reason or another, London’s property rocketed. But will the current global housing market last? Let’s take a look at some of the hot and cold property markets around the world.

America: Still A Good Investment

Take a look at the UBS Global Real Estate Index and you’ll see some stand out places to buy property: and actually, rather than just seeing these areas as an investment, these are all places you might actually want to live. America’s abundance of space, high standards of living, and creative real estate spaces have made it a relatively stable real estate market, which is great for investors as it means that any single real estate market is unlikely to be a bubble. New York and Boston, two cities that many people would like to call home, are currently undervalued, while the luxury accommodations that are popping up in Florida and beyond by Nicolas Livsit and co are establishing a stable second home economy. This is especially interesting as most popular areas in other countries are considered to be overvalued. In the States, it is only San Francisco that is considered to be overvalued – and that is perhaps down to the lack of urban sprawl that happens in other cities. If Silicon Valley’s money relocates, what will happen to the city’s real estate market?

The Bubble About To Burst?

If you’ve got investments in Vancouver, London, Stockholm, or Sydney, you might want to have a think about reevaluating your portfolio: all of these cities are at risk of being in a property bubble. Vancouver tops the list of the risk index, with property prices having risen far beyond what their actual worth is over the past 5 years. London has even more outrageous prices, but the city also has history on its side: the future of its housing market will depend on how Brexit affects the economy. It’s all mostly due to the foreign investors opening up the property to a global market, though Vancouver has recently slapped an added tax on foreign property buyers which has already been shown to halt the buying. Will this spell the end of a Vancouver bubble that, unlike London, will also certainly have to pop at some stage?

Overseas

If you’re looking to buy just for yourself and not as an investment, there are a well of highly affordable properties in countries across the world. Ireland and Greece are two of the most popular at the moment, as are Spain, Finland, and Portugal. Time to ditch the day to day investing and head to vibrant, sunny Europe?