The Romans consulted the Cumaean Sibyl, who foretold the future, but often in a deceivingly ambiguous way; Basil Fawlty knew that his future was unambiguously in the hands of a rather different Sybil; for the rest of us to get a grip on reality, we must turn to Knight Frank’s 2008 Annual Wealth Report, examining in some detail trends in the global market between 2006 and 2007.

It exclusively reveals – in association with Citi Private Bank – that London is the most expensive location for prime residential property, Monaco is second and St Jean Cap Ferrat third. 

We suppose it’s best not to make assumptions, though, so let’s be grateful to them for confirming our prejudices; GoldFinger’s motto has always been “if you can’t praise grudgingly, don’t praise at all.”

But they won’t, I’m afraid, be cheering in Dublin, Ibiza or Noosa Heads, Australia, which are the worst-performing locations, all of them down in the period reviewed. What’s wrong with Noosa Heads? On the beach near Brisbane – and even nearer somewhere called Beerwah – what’s not to like? The vast numbers of those who have recently become HNWs – see below - have clearly not heard of it; we can’t believe that they went there and didn’t like it, which is clearly what happened in the two other places, judging from the crowds of merrymakers looking not too good the morning GoldFinger was in town.

But we need facts; here are some. Plenty, indeed….

The average change in capital value of prime property, on a global basis, was 11 per cent between Q4 2006 and Q4 2007, the strongest growth being demonstrated in the emerging economies, especially China and central and eastern Europe. The second area of strong growth was in the global financial centres and second-home hot spots in France, Italy and the Caribbean.

Overall in 2007, capital growth in prime residential properties has been strongest in the main global financial centres and those with benign tax jurisdictions. Five of the top ten locations fell into this category.

As in London, where properties valued over £10 million (about $20 million) grew by 37 per cent against the 29 per cent average, there is a similar fracturing in the price banding of prime properties in other global super prime centres such as Monaco.

The biggest high net worth population growth rates for 2007 were recorded by China (14 per cent) and India (9 per cent), while Kazakhstan, Singapore, Argentina and United Arab Emirates all achieved 8 per cent.

In absolute terms, the most significant growth was seen in the US, where the number of HNWs ($1 million to $5 million) grew by almost 120,000 to 3.1 million. China saw the second largest increase, with the figure rising by nearly 46,000 in one year. China’s HNW population is now 373,000, which is almost as many as in Germany (375,000). The absolute growth in HNW populations exceeded 20,000 in both Japan and the UK, which with 765,000 and 557,000 HNWs respectively have the second and third largest populations in absolute terms.

Commodity price rises have brought wealth and created a significant number of additional new HWNs in countries that benefit from a high level of natural resources – Brazil, Canada, Australia and Russia, which each added more than 8,500 additional wealthy residents in 2007.

Despite a weaker outlook for this year and next, KF believe prime markets will remain worthy of attention over the long term. GoldFinger says: “Buy Beerwah.”