Inflation-adjusted global house prices fell by 1.2% in the first quarter of 2026, although the decline was concentrated in several large economies rather than spread across most housing markets.
The annual fall accelerated from 0.5% in the previous quarter, according to figures released on Thursday by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).
Real house prices are property prices adjusted for consumer inflation. On a nominal basis, before that adjustment, the BIS said global residential prices rose by 1.7% from a year earlier.
The aggregate decline also differed sharply from the experience of the typical country. The median annual change across the jurisdictions covered by the BIS was an increase of 2.6%.
China and Canada weigh on the global figure
Real prices slipped by 0.2% across advanced economies, their first annual decline since the third quarter of 2024. They fell by 2% across emerging market economies, led by a 4.3% drop in emerging Asia.
China and Canada recorded the largest falls among the markets listed, with prices down by 7% in both countries. New Zealand followed with a 4% decline. Prices also fell by 2% in the United States and the United Kingdom.
Other regions moved in the opposite direction. Real prices rose by 5% in Latin America and by 2.6% across the euro area. Portugal recorded the strongest national increase at 15%, followed by North Macedonia at 13% and Bulgaria at 11%.
Only around one-third of advanced economies and one-quarter of emerging economies recorded annual declines. The BIS said the negative global average was driven by a small number of large economies.
This difference reflects how the headline figure is calculated. The BIS weights countries using gross domestic product and purchasing-power-parity exchange rates, so movements in larger economies have more influence than movements in smaller ones. The median, by contrast, is the middle result after the national growth rates are placed in order.
Prices remain above pre-pandemic levels
Despite the latest fall, real global house prices were 2.7% higher than in the fourth quarter of 2019, immediately before the Covid-19 pandemic.
Among G20 economies, the largest increases over that period were recorded in Türkiye, where prices more than doubled, followed by Australia at 23%, Mexico at 22% and the United States at 18%.
China moved in the other direction, with real prices down by 22% from their pre-pandemic level. Canada recorded a 9% decline and Indonesia an 8% fall.
The latest figures update the BIS data covered in our earlier report on the global housing-market slowdown at the end of 2025.
The BIS figures cover the advanced and emerging economies that report data to its residential property price database. They are useful for tracking broad international movements, but the gap between the weighted average and the median shows why the global result does not describe every national market.
