From Dublin to Tokyo, house prices have slumped in the past year as the credit crunch has restricted lending and stunted growth in the biggest economies, new figures have shown.

The world's three biggest financial powerhouses, the US, Japan and Germany, have all experienced negative or zero growth in property prices in the 12 months to 31 March, according to the latest Global House Price Index from the estate agent Knight Frank.

The once booming Baltic states of Latvia and Estonia – where many Britons have bought holiday homes – suffered the most, crashing 20 and 10 per cent respectively to the bottom of the table of 33 nations.

In Western Europe, Irish homeowners experienced the sharpest downturn, losing 8.8 per cent of the value of their homes, while in Germany prices fell by 5.2 per cent. In Japan, prices fell by 0.7 per cent, while the US, where the Treasury has pumped in billions of dollars to revive the economy, experienced zero house price growth.

Britain's runaway housing boom slowed to an annual rise of 1.1 per cent, though new figures from the Nationwide Building Society this week revealed they had slumped 2.5 per cent in May, the fastest fall in prices since the housing recession of the 1990s.

Few major economies escaped the global housing slowdown, with France, Hungary, Austria, Lithuania, Switzerland, Poland, New Zealand, Israel and Denmark all recording annual rises of 3 per cent or less. Some burgeoning economies have bucked the trend, though, mostly in Asia; Singapore was up 29.9 per cent, Hong Kong 28 per cent and China 11 per cent. Iceland and Australia also did well.

The figures indicate the deep impact felt by the slowdown triggered last year by the defaults of sub-prime home loans by Americans, but they miss its severest effect because the trend has intensified in the first half of 2008.

Knight Frank's figures for the first three months show that prices plunged by 8.4 per cent in Ireland and by 3.9 per cent in the UK. In the US, they fell by 0.2 per cent and in France by 0.1 per cent, but they rose in Germany by 1.8 per cent and by 6 per cent in Russia.

In a statement, Knight Frank said: "The number of markets where prices have fallen has increased, and, although there are still locations where price growth is in double figures, at the moment they are the exception rather than the rule. A year ago, 35 per cent of the markets covered by the Global House Price Index saw house price inflation in double figures. In the first quarter of 2008, this proportion had just fallen to 20 per cent."

The British estate agent added: "The geography of the best-performing markets is not as clearly delineated as in previous years, when we might have been able to say that growth was strongest in the Far East, or central and eastern Europe. Today the top performing markets are dispersed around the world, with Bulgaria, Singapore, Hong Kong and Jersey being the locations with the highest growth rates."

The global index is based on national statistics, where available, or figures from a respected national organisation.

Source: Independent.co.uk