The latest (15th) edition of Knight Frank's annual The Wealth Report was published last month. I find these interesting because they give you a global view of how and where capital is flowing into real estate (specifically prime real estate). London, for example, did rather well last year despite the pandemic. Buyers from the around the world spent nearly $4 billion on what is commonly referred to as "super-prime properties." This is real estate with a sale price of US$10 million or more. London saw 201 super-prime properties trade hands last year, with an average price of $18.6 million and with 31 of these transactions being at or above $25 million. This is an increase compared to the year prior (2019), which I suppose is something given that the UK's housing market was more or less frozen between March and May of last year. These figures put London at the top, ahead of New York and Hong Kong, when it comes to super-prime real estate sales in 2020. (London figures via the Financial Times.)
Another interesting thing that you'll find in the report is a city ranking that Knight Frank calls their City Trifecta. What this index does is take Knight Frank's City Wealth Index (which considers where wealth is currently concentrated) and then adds in two other dimensions: innovation and wellbeing. The idea here is that innovation should drive future economic growth and wealth, and that wellbeing (quality of life) is pretty important when it comes to the future competitiveness of our global cities. When you look at the world's top cities through this lens, the ranking starts to differ from what you may be used to seeing with cities like London, New York, and Hong Kong at the top (see above chart). Now you have Munich taking the number one spot; Boston and Toronto in 5th and 6th position, respectively; and cities like Zurich jumping up ahead of cities like Hong Kong. These kind of rankings always need to be looked at with a critical eye, but they can be interesting nonetheless.
Image: Knight Frank
This is a chart from Knight Frank showing the average value of "super-prime" residential real estate transactions in 12 global markets between March and June 2020, and versus the same period last year.
Knight Frank classifies super-prime real estate as having a value greater than US$10 million and ultra-prime real estate as having a value greater than US$25 million.
In this particular chart, London takes the top spot with an average super-prime transaction value of US$38 million. This is a big jump compared to 2019 where the average value was US$16.9 million.
The below graphs are taken from a recent (June 2019) report by Knight Frank on "prime" residential pricing across the world. They define "prime" as generally being the top 5% of each market by value. What these graphs show are the spread between the average price of a prime property and the top price achieved in that market.
The latest (15th) edition of Knight Frank's annual The Wealth Report was published last month. I find these interesting because they give you a global view of how and where capital is flowing into real estate (specifically prime real estate). London, for example, did rather well last year despite the pandemic. Buyers from the around the world spent nearly $4 billion on what is commonly referred to as "super-prime properties." This is real estate with a sale price of US$10 million or more. London saw 201 super-prime properties trade hands last year, with an average price of $18.6 million and with 31 of these transactions being at or above $25 million. This is an increase compared to the year prior (2019), which I suppose is something given that the UK's housing market was more or less frozen between March and May of last year. These figures put London at the top, ahead of New York and Hong Kong, when it comes to super-prime real estate sales in 2020. (London figures via the Financial Times.)
Another interesting thing that you'll find in the report is a city ranking that Knight Frank calls their City Trifecta. What this index does is take Knight Frank's City Wealth Index (which considers where wealth is currently concentrated) and then adds in two other dimensions: innovation and wellbeing. The idea here is that innovation should drive future economic growth and wealth, and that wellbeing (quality of life) is pretty important when it comes to the future competitiveness of our global cities. When you look at the world's top cities through this lens, the ranking starts to differ from what you may be used to seeing with cities like London, New York, and Hong Kong at the top (see above chart). Now you have Munich taking the number one spot; Boston and Toronto in 5th and 6th position, respectively; and cities like Zurich jumping up ahead of cities like Hong Kong. These kind of rankings always need to be looked at with a critical eye, but they can be interesting nonetheless.
Image: Knight Frank
This is a chart from Knight Frank showing the average value of "super-prime" residential real estate transactions in 12 global markets between March and June 2020, and versus the same period last year.
Knight Frank classifies super-prime real estate as having a value greater than US$10 million and ultra-prime real estate as having a value greater than US$25 million.
In this particular chart, London takes the top spot with an average super-prime transaction value of US$38 million. This is a big jump compared to 2019 where the average value was US$16.9 million.
The below graphs are taken from a recent (June 2019) report by Knight Frank on "prime" residential pricing across the world. They define "prime" as generally being the top 5% of each market by value. What these graphs show are the spread between the average price of a prime property and the top price achieved in that market.
Typically it is Hong Kong that takes the top spot in this ranking, but this year it fell to third. Still, Hong Kong had the highest number of transactions with 60 super-prime sales taking place in the first half of 2020. This is down from 155 in the first half of 2019.
Overall, Knight Frank recorded 281 super-prime transactions across these 12 cities in the first half of this year. This is, not surprisingly, a decline compared to last year, which saw 594 transactions over this same time period.
But all things being considered and given some of these price increases, the super-prime market is certainly holding its own.
Chart: Knight Frank
The most expensive market is Hong Kong. The average price of a prime property in 2018 was USD 4,251 per square foot (or USD 45,760 per square meter) and the top price achieved was in 2016 at USD 28,154 per square foot (or USD 303,051 per square meter).
Using the 2018 average, a 350 square foot studio apartment would run nearly USD 1.5 million (or almost CAD 2 million), assuming there are "prime" studios available in the market. Remember, we are talking about the top end of the market.
If you'd like to download a copy of the full report, you can do that over here.
Typically it is Hong Kong that takes the top spot in this ranking, but this year it fell to third. Still, Hong Kong had the highest number of transactions with 60 super-prime sales taking place in the first half of 2020. This is down from 155 in the first half of 2019.
Overall, Knight Frank recorded 281 super-prime transactions across these 12 cities in the first half of this year. This is, not surprisingly, a decline compared to last year, which saw 594 transactions over this same time period.
But all things being considered and given some of these price increases, the super-prime market is certainly holding its own.
Chart: Knight Frank
The most expensive market is Hong Kong. The average price of a prime property in 2018 was USD 4,251 per square foot (or USD 45,760 per square meter) and the top price achieved was in 2016 at USD 28,154 per square foot (or USD 303,051 per square meter).
Using the 2018 average, a 350 square foot studio apartment would run nearly USD 1.5 million (or almost CAD 2 million), assuming there are "prime" studios available in the market. Remember, we are talking about the top end of the market.
If you'd like to download a copy of the full report, you can do that over here.
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