Our house-price forecast expects the global rally to lose steam

THE RECESSION set off by the covid-19 pandemic has strangely coincided with surging asset values, and residential property is no exception. Taking an equal-weighted average of 16 rich-world markets, real prices have risen by 5.4% during the most recent 12 months with available data, compared with 2.2% a year earlier. In America values in the 12 months to January jumped by 11%, the fastest rate since 2006.