The capital of Indonesia put in the fastest price growth rate for luxury properties in 32 cities tracked by Knight Frank, the global estate agency, while Singapore and Hong Kong saw prices drop sharply.

The capital of Indonesia put in the fastest price growth rate for luxury properties in 32 cities tracked by Knight Frank, the global estate agency, while Singapore and Hong Kong saw prices drop sharply.

The figures for the Prime Global Cities Index highlight how Singapore and Hong Kong, the two major wealth management and financial hubs of the Asia-Pacific region, appear to have witnessed something of a retreat to their still-red hot property markets. Governments in both jurisdictions have enacted measures to cool prices down – with some success, at least judging by these figures. At the end of March this year, Singapore’s prices were down 8.7 per cent year-on year; Hong Kong prices fell by 5.2 per cent over the same period. Jakarta, by contrast, was up by a giddy 37.7 per cent.

For the whole collection of cities, prices rose by 0.8 per cent from the previous quarter – the weakest rise since the third quarter of 2012. On a year ago, the total index gain was 6.1 per cent, Knight Frank said.

In second place behind Jakarta was Dublin, up 24.6 per cent, suggesting that the once-devastated property market of the Irish capital has staged something of a fightback. In third place was Miami, up 17.2 per cent; in fourth, Tokyo, was 16.2 per cent. Beijing came fifth, up by 14.7 per cent.

Geneva, at the bottom of the scale, fell 7.7 per cent; Zurich fell by 2.3 per cent. London is still gaining ground, with prices up 7.5 per cent, the report said.

“The first quarter, for many European and US cities, corresponds to the winter months where sales activity is sluggish and price movements slower. In much of Asia it also marks a traditional low season as Chinese New Year sees sales activity decline,” the report said.

“In addition, tax changes (CGT, VAT etc) often take effect at the end of December leading to a spike in sales in the fourth quarter as buyers and vendors look to take advantage of lower rates e.g. fiscal cliff in New York in 2012,” the report continued.

To put the figures into a longer term perspective, Knight Frank noted that its index is 33.8 per cent higher than its post-Lehman low in the second quarter of 2009, and it is 24.9 per cent higher than its pre-crisis peak in Q2 2008.