"There is more chance of finding Elvis on the moon than there is of a house-price crash next year." John Wri-glesworth, an economist at Hometrack, a British property-data firm, recently summed up the mood of housing experts not just in Britain but in many other countries as well. House prices' continued climb-despite a stockmarket crash, a global economic slowdown and a war-has strengthened confidence that they can only keep rising. Since The Economist launched its global house-price indicators early last year, we have drawn attention to rapid rises in house prices in several countries. In the past five years, real house prices have increased at average annual rates of 8-12% in Australia, Britain, Ireland, the Netherlands and Spain (see chart 1). In comparison, America's 4% average annual gain may seem modest. Yet this is America's biggest real increase since records began. It also conceals bigger increases in many cities. In San Francisco and Boston real prices have risen by 10% a year.
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