Russia came up in the top 30 of the countries with the highest growth rate of cost of elite real estate, outmatching UK and US in this respect. A research summing up the results for the year 2018 included 56 countries.

Over the last year, Russia came up from place 57 to 26 with house prices surging by 4.9%. Top real estate prices in the U.S. showed a 4.7% increase, which ranks the country immediately below Russia, while the UK took only 40th position with an increase of 2.5%. The most expensive luxury housing is listed in Slovenia, where this type of properties gained 15%, while demand nearly doubled since 2009. For the first time, this EU country is at the top of the list. Slovenia is followed by Malta (11.8%) and China (10.7%).

At the same time, experts predict a weakening of the leading position of China due to a falling sales trend, while the attractiveness of Malta is on the rise due to the citizenship programme, similar to the one introduced in Cyprus.

The biggest fall in real estate prices is observed in Israel (-2.1%), Australia (-1.9%) and some European countries: properties in Finland lost 2.9%, in Switzerland (-0.1%), Italy (-0.8%) and Sweden (-1.5%).