Luxury housing prices in South Korean capital Seoul rose third highest in the final quarter of last year among 45 key metropolitans across the world, according to Prime Global Cities Index.

The Prime Global Cities Index released by British real estate agent Knight Frank is a valuation-based index tracking the movement in prices of prime property in 45 cities with focus on top 5 percent luxury category.

Prime residential property prices gained 11.7 percent on year in Seoul across October-December period, accelerated by 7 percent on-year rise in the third quarter and far above the global average of 1.9 percent in the final quarter, despite the outbreak of the third wave in pandemic and strict mortgage loan regulation to stem runaway housing prices.

Auckland in New Zealand, one of the model countries in handling the Covid-19 outbreak, showed the strongest rise of 18 percent.

Four Asian cities have made to the top ten rankings. Shenzhen, China (13.3 percent) came in second, followed by Seoul. Manila, the Philippines (10.2 percent) and another Chinese city Shanghai (8.5 percent) ranked fourth and seventh, respectively.

Other cities in the top ten rankings include Moscow, St. Petersburg, Vancouver, Zurich, and Los Angeles.

Luxury housing prices in traditionally high-priced cities like London (-4.3 percent) and New York (-5.1 percent) fell to rank 41st and 42nd, respectively, in on-year gains as Covid-19 spread remained strong despite rollouts of vaccines. Hong Kong and Bangkok ranked at the bottom two with prime property prices slipping 6.9 percent and 7.3 percent, respectively.

By Hong Jang-won and Lee Soo-min

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