New Zealand’s national residential property median price has exactly doubled in ten years, according to the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand’s 2006 Annual Review.

Property investment has produced excellent returns averaged annually over five and ten years, ranging between 7.5% and 25.5% across Australia. However rental yields, currently between 2% and 4%, would need to rise, in order to attract investors back to the property market and alleviate the apparent rental shortage, says Real Estate Institute of Australia (REIA) President Graham Joyce.

The crisis in international credit markets that in many countries is being interpreted as the beginning of the end of long property booms will have a limited impact on the real estate market in the Czech Republic, a senior central bank official has said.

France’s flagging real estate sector, like its economy, could turn around over the coming years with the victory of Nicolas Sarkozy in the presidential election set to usher in a series of reforms that will benefit homeowners and property investors.