GENEVA, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- A global index by Swiss bank UBS Thursday showed significant risks of real estate bubbles in booming cities such as Hong Kong, Munich and Toronto.
The 2018 Global Real Estate Bubble Index, published on Thursday, found that bubbles or risk of overvaluation soared in Munich, Amsterdam and Hong Kong over the past year.
The report by Switzerland's biggest bank said that Vancouver, London and Amsterdam are also at risk of property market overheating.
"Although many financial centers remain at risk of a housing bubble, we should not compare today's situation with pre-crisis conditions," said Mark Haefele, chief investment officer at UBS Global Wealth Management.
"Nevertheless, investors should remain selective within housing markets in bubble risk territories such as Hong Kong, Toronto, and London," he said.
Major imbalances also characterize Stockholm, Paris, San Francisco, Frankfurt and Sydney.
Valuations are stretched in Zurich and Geneva as well as Los Angeles, Tokyo, and New York.
By contrast, property markets in Boston, Singapore and Milan seem fairly valued, while Chicago is undervalued.
At the other end of the scale, Stockholm and Sydney experienced the steepest drop and moved out of bubble risk territory, the report said.
Although the bank warned that many of the financial centers analyzed remain at risk of housing bubbles, the situation is not comparable to the pre-2007 financial crisis.
UBS said that in contrast to the boom of the mid-2000s, no global evidence of simultaneous excesses in lending and construction exists.
