UBS Global Real Estate Bubble Index

The UBS Global Real Estate Bubble Index analyses residential property prices in 25 major cities around the world. In this year’s edition, in focused on how housing prices in urban centers have continued to climb, which is noteworthy for two reasons. First, because city life has suffered a considerable blow from the pandemic and the rise of remote working. Second, because housing affordability in cities was already heavily strained even before the pandemic.

And yet the lack of affordability of homeownership has evidently not been an obstacle to price increases. Record low financing costs and the entrenched expectation of long-term value gains have made owning a home so appealing that the price and debt level don’t seem to matter—however, this may prove to be a fallacy.

The interactive Global Real Estate Bubble Index tracks and compares the risk of bubbles in 25 cities around the world over the last three years. Moscow, Stockholm, and the cities around the Pacific—Sydney, Tokyo, and Vancouver—recorded double- digit price growth. European housing markets are still hot, and imbalances are sky-high.

Read the full report