_Russia 2018: The Property World Cup

The 21st FIFA World Cup kicked off on 14th June. To celebrate we thought it would be interesting to host a Property World Cup of our own, comparing the value of an area the size of a FIFA penalty spot based on luxury residential prices across 30 top tier cities around the world. The penalty spot is 22cm or 0.038 square metres in size.

June 15, 2018

Property World Cup 2018

^{Above: * Area of a circle = πr² = 0.038m². Prices and exchange rate as at 30 March 2018. Based on a penalty spot 22cm in diameter}

^{Source: Knight Frank Research, Douglas Elliman/Miller Samuel, Ken Corporation. * New developments only}

Monaco, itself home to a France Ligue 1 football team but not a FIFA member, leads the rankings with a penalty spot costing around US$2,490 based on prices at the end of March 2018 and significantly higher than that of the second-ranked city, Hong Kong, where the same space would cost US$1,720.

There are five cities where the price of a penalty spot exceeds US$1,000; New York, London and Singapore join Monaco and Hong Kong in this exclusive group.

England, the only home nation to make it through to the World Cup Finals this year, will be hoping it sits as high in the final results table as London does in our price rankings. An area the size of a penalty spot in London costs around $1,400.

While the prime central London market remains sensitive to political events there is a sense of relative stability being restored which, if mirrored on the pitch, would hopefully ensure there is no repetition of events in Brazil 2014, when the Three Lions were knocked out in the group stage.

Below the frontrunners are key gateway cities across Europe including Geneva, Paris and Vienna - where prime values have recovered since 2016 – and in Asia - where greater regulation aimed at cooling price growth in cities such as Shanghai and Sydney is gathering pace.

Despite Seoul’s mid-table ranking in terms of pricing, the South Korean capital tops our latest index tracking price growth, with luxury prices ending the year to March 2018 25% higher. South Korea, one of only three Asia Pacific teams to have made it through to the World Cup finals, has one of the best track records, having qualified for the last nine World Cups.

The price of a penalty spot in Moscow, which is home to two of Russia’s 12 stadiums that are set to play host to 64 matches this summer, is around $480 based on current luxury residential prices. The Russian capital has sat at, or close to, the bottom of our annual price growth rankings since 2015. Alongside FIFA stadiums a large number of prime residential properties have also been built in recent years. This increasing volume of new supply, along with the wider economic landscape, has led to weak price performance. Our latest analysis, however, shows the rate of decline is slowing; Moscow recorded a dip of only 1.4% in the year to March 2018.

Read our Prime Global Cities Index to compare how prices in the world’s top prime residential markets are performed in the year to March 2018

Read our Moscow Residential Real Estate Report for more analysis of the current trends in the Russian capital.