International Property Journal - News and information on global property markets

While hardly a blast of optimism, Knight Frank’s just-released forecast for global residential property markets points to an industry returning to some degree of normalcy.

Sixty-one percent of countries surveyed by the property company reported positive value growth from 2009 to 2010, up from 35 percent in the previous 12 months. “Data from the second quarter of 2010 suggests that the recovery is continuing to spread,” Knight Frank says.

Pondering this year’s Best Tall Building award winners, architecture geeks will find much to love and loath.

The annual awards, presented by the Chicago-based Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, recognize projects that have made “extraordinary contributions to the advancement of tall buildings and the urban environment, and that achieve sustainability at the highest and broadest level.”

In others words, skyscrapers must show something more than a little flash and sparkle to win. To their credit, CTBUH judges don’t simply pander to the outrageous towers designed to gain attention, projects that offer plenty of bells and whistles on the outside, but little engineering on the inside.

That said, skyscrapers are meant to be ostentatious and grand, jaw-dropping and brash, inspiring devoted followings with their flair. Some may disagree, but this year’s regional winners deliver the goods:

Despite jaw-dropping declines in places like Dubai and Bulgaria, the latest data from Global Property Guide shows signs of recovery in many housing markets. Of the 27 areas surveyed, 16 posted increases in the latest quarter, indicating “the trend is toward recovery,” the analyst site concludes.

Some of the markets showing in uptick from the previous quarter included Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia and the U.K. For the year, Singapore and the U.K. are still down from a year earlier, “however the annual data is somewhat like a car’s rearview mirror,” considering the decimation of the later part of 2008, the report notes.