Durban is the top-performing South African city when it comes to growth in house prices.
It takes 14th place out of the 165 cities in the world surveyed for the latest Knight Frank Global Residential Cities Index. Residential property prices in Durban increased on average by 11.6% between the fourth quarter of 2014 and the fourth quarter of 2015.
The index, based on official house price data for mainstream residential markets, places Cape Town second among South African cities. The Mother City holds the 33rd position with an average residential property price increase of 8.6%. Johannesburg is in 52nd spot with an average price increase of 6%.
Overall, the Global Residential Cities Index increased by 4.4% in 2015. More than 121 of the 165 cities tracked by the index saw house prices rise or remain flat.
The Chinese city of Shenzhen tops the index with price growth of 47.5%, followed by Auckland (25.4%), Istanbul (25%), Sydney (19.9%) and Shanghai (18.2%).
Kate Everett-Allen, international residential analyst at Knight Frank, said urban and rural housing markets were increasingly polarised when it came to price performance. According to the World Bank, 54% of the world’s population lived in cities, and by 2045 the urban population would rise by another 2 billion to 6 billion, suggesting the pressure on urban prices looked set to intensify.
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