Property prices around the world are continuing to rise despite a slowdown in America, according to new research by Knight Frank. The agent found that Latvia is the country with the strongest house price growth of 61.2%: 1,600 transactions took place on apartments in Riga alone in January. Falling in second, third, and fourth place in the index of price growth are Estonia, Bulgaria and Lithuania, all of whom have displayed enormous growth of over 20% year-on-year.

The report also has some interesting data on countries further west. In particular, Germany is singled out as a country whose fortunes may be changing. 'The latest quarterly data suggest that there has been a turnaround in the fortunes of the German market and while prices now may be lower than at the same point 12 months ago, prices compared to the last quarter of 2006 have actually risen by 1.8,' it says.

Another country undergoing better growth than some might expect is Spain. According to Knight Frank: 'Despite recent negative press, the Spanish market continues to record growth, albeit this growth is slowing.'

However the report does find growth slowing in some markets in Western Europe, notably in Ireland and Denmark where the unsustainable figures of recent years have cooled somewhat from their growth rates of 15% and 24% respectively to 4.7% and 7.6%.

Outside Europe, South Africa is still looking very strong, although it dropped out of the top five countries, it remains in sixth place, followed by Singapore, Canada and the UK, which has experienced extremely healthy price growth, much of which has been driven by very active markets in London and the South East.