CASABROVA Global Investor Briefing — September 2026

Prepared 2026-09-02 · Score cut 2026-09-01 (monthly, 29 markets) · Baseline 2026-08-01 Market data as at 31 August 2026 unless a different date is stated. Central bank decisions carry their own dates.

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TL;DR

• The Score didn't move. No market changed by even half a point; the biggest move either way was 0.40. No market changed tier or moved more than one rank. If you were choosing between two markets last month, these numbers don't change that.
• Estonia edged past Poland into #1 by 0.20 points — inside the noise. Treat it as a tie.
• Rates moved in opposite directions, and that matters more than the Score did. New Zealand raised, Canada held, Israel cut, Korea raised. For a cross-border buyer, the gap between two countries' rates now does more to your numbers than either housing market did in August.
• Israel and the eurozone are moving apart. The Bank of Israel cut on 1 September, effective 3 September, taking prime to 4.75% against Israeli inflation of 1.5%. The ECB has not cut, euro-area inflation reached 3.3% in August, and 12-month Euribor crossed 3%. Cheaper to borrow here, dearer to borrow there.
• Prices rose almost everywhere in 2025, and by a lot in places. Hungary +18.3%, Portugal +17.6%, Croatia +13.9%, Spain +12.7%. Only Canada and New Zealand saw prices fall.

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Macro Dashboard

The two decisions taken on 2 September

New Zealand — raised. The Reserve Bank's committee agreed unanimously to lift the Official Cash Rate by 0.25 points, from 2.50% to 2.75%, and said it "may need to increase further." Inflation hit 4.1% in the June quarter on fuel prices tied to the Middle East conflict; excluding vehicle fuel it was 2.9%.

Canada — held. The overnight rate stays at 2.25% (Bank Rate 2.5%, deposit rate 2.20%). Growth came in as forecast, but new US tariffs and Canadian counter-measures have clouded the outlook and high oil prices raise the risk inflation stays above target. Headline inflation is near 3%, or 2.2% excluding petrol. Next decision 28 October.

Decisions in the last 30 days

One note on Australia, because "held at 4.35%" reads as sleepy and isn't: that level was reached by three separate increases during 2026. It is a recently tightened rate being maintained, not one that has sat still.

Where there was no August decision — and why that isn't staleness

Several large markets show no August move because no August meeting existed. The ECB last decided 23 July (held, 2.25%); the US Federal Reserve 29 July (3.50–3.75%); the UK 30 July (3.75%); Japan 31 July (1.00%); Georgia 29 July (8.25%); the UAE 29 July (3.65%) — all holds. Singapore met 27 July but runs policy through an exchange-rate band, so there is no policy rate to quote. Denmark last moved on 11 June, raising to 1.85% — a mechanical follow-on from its euro peg, not an independent judgement.

On their published 2026 calendars, the Fed, the ECB, the Bank of Japan, Singapore's MAS and Georgia have no August meeting at all; the Bank of England's summer decision was published on its scheduled date of 30 July. An absent August decision here means the calendar, not neglect.

What financing cost, 31 July to 31 August

The UK month-end here is 28 August, because 31 August was a bank holiday; the UAE has no 28 August fixing.

The direction is the point: euro borrowing costs rose across the curve, and 12-month Euribor — the reference behind a great many European mortgages — went through 3% for the first time this cycle. Japanese long yields rose faster. Dollar borrowing costs did not move at all.

The ECB decides 10 September. It held at 2.25% in July, having raised to that level in June. Euro-area inflation was 2.9% in July and a flash estimate of 3.3% for August was published on 1 September, against a 2% target — so the pressure is upward. We are not quoting a probability: market-implied odds circulate widely but we could not tie a specific figure to a named, dated publisher, and an unattributed number is worse than none.

Currency — every market currency, with its reference date

Rates are European Central Bank euro reference rates for 31 August 2026, with two labelled exceptions: the UAE dirham is derived from its dollar peg, and the Georgian lari is a National Bank of Georgia observation dated 28 August. The dollar column is a cross-rate derived from the same euro fixings, not a separate ECB dollar fixing.

A plus sign means the euro bought more of that currency at the end of August than at the end of July. Eleven of our markets use the euro itself. The dirham has been fixed at 3.6725 to the dollar since 1997, so a dirham purchase carries dollar exposure and it moved against the euro by the same 0.97% the dollar did. The lari figures are the National Bank of Georgia's own — including its dollar rate, which is an NBG quote rather than a cross-rate — and its latest observation at our cutoff was 28 August, so that row is dated accordingly.

The month's largest single move was the Korean won: the euro bought 4.32% fewer won than at the end of July — a gain of about 4.5% measured from the won side — in the same month Korea raised its policy rate.

The W7 macro reading — and why it disagrees with the Score

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This Month's Score Top 5

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Movers

There are none. No market changed by 2 points or 2 ranks. Largest single move: Canada +0.40 (65.60 → 66.00), rank 19 → 18. Singapore also rose 0.40 but stayed at #29. The largest decline was 0.20, shared by Poland, Thailand and Croatia.

Sixteen markets ticked up, four were flat, nine ticked down — an average of +0.09. Every individual move is far too small to represent anything happening in a housing market. Five pairs swapped a single rank on gaps of 0.10–0.30. We treat gaps that small as ties, which is an editorial precision rule rather than a measured margin of error. Tier distribution unchanged.

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Three Market Deep Dives

Why these three. Estonia sits at #1 on the Score with the weakest macro reading of any top-five market — the most interesting contradiction in this month's data, and a market we have never given its own treatment. Slovenia is #3 on the Score, joint second on W7, and posted the fastest rise in transaction volume in the whole cohort. Japan is where something actually moved in August: its government bond yields rose faster than any other market's, and its central bank meets on 17–18 September. We have deliberately not re-run Poland or Greece, both of which have had dedicated coverage since July.

Tax, for an Israeli buying personally. These four rows were rebuilt this month after a verification against each country's own tax authority. They are no longer single percentages, because single percentages were the problem: a transfer tax, a withholding rate and a final bill are different things, and a rate means nothing without the value it is charged on.

The profile: an Israeli tax resident buying in their own name, treated as a non-resident in the property country, for ordinary residential investment. Figures are the property country's tax only. What you then owe in Israel, and the credit you can claim against it, is a separate calculation.

Two of those deserve a second look. Slovenia's capital gains tax disappears entirely after fifteen years — a fact a flat headline rate would have hidden, and one that changes the arithmetic of a long hold more than anything else in this table. And Japan's 20.42% on rent is a withholding, not a tax bill; treating it as the cost of holding property there overstates it, sometimes considerably.

Estonia tops the Score on very low transaction taxes and strong data transparency, and it is genuinely cheap in places. The Land and Spatial Development Board's own 2025 market report puts mean prices at €286 per square metre in Sillamäe, €205 in Kohtla-Järve and €112 in Kiviõli — towns in the industrial east where property costs a fraction of Tallinn. That is not a data error; it is what a shrinking town costs, and a high yield there is compensation for risk rather than a free lunch. We are not publishing a national price band or a yield range for Estonia this month, because the specific figures we hold cannot be traced to a dated method. Non-residents can borrow, and Estonian mortgage pricing follows 6-month Euribor plus a bank margin — so August's euro rate rises feed through — but we are not quoting a loan-to-value or a rate range until we can attach them to a named lender and product. House prices rose 5.2% in 2025 and residential building permits rose 34.6%, to 6,695 dwellings from 4,973 — the strongest supply response in this trio.

Slovenia has the best macro reading of the three, and the fastest-growing sales volume of the ten markets in Eurostat's annual house-sales series, up 29.9% in 2025. And for this readership specifically, the ownership question is simpler than it is often made to sound: Slovenia places citizens of EU, OECD and EFTA states in a category that does not require a reciprocity determination, and Israel has been an OECD member since 2010. An Israeli buyer does not need to establish reciprocity, and does not need a Slovenian company in order to hold property, on nationality grounds. Requirements attaching to a particular property, and anyone's individual legal circumstances, still need local checking. House prices rose 4.3% in 2025 (Eurostat); residential building permits fell 3.0%, to 4,378 dwellings from 4,515 (SURS) — rising demand against slightly tightening supply. Mortgage lending to non-residents is available; the specific rate and loan-to-value terms in our records are under review and are not published in this edition.

Japan is the market where August produced a real signal, and it came from the bond market rather than the central bank: 10-year government yields rose 14 basis points and 2-year yields 24, while the policy rate sat at 1.00%. That is a market moving ahead of its central bank, which meets 17–18 September. Transactions rose 4.9% in 2025 (Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism) and housing starts fell 6.5%, to 740,667 dwellings from 792,195 (MLIT). Japan's house-price index is one of the eight not carried in this edition, so there is no price change quoted for it here. Financing is the open question, and we are going to be blunt about it: we cannot tell you what a foreign buyer can borrow in Japan. Our own records contradict each other on whether non-residents can borrow at all, and neither side of that contradiction is tied to a named lender, a defined borrower or a date. Some Japanese lenders do run non-resident property loans, often with narrow nationality or income-geography conditions, so the answer is unlikely to be a flat no — but "unlikely to be no" is not a number, and we will not print loan terms we cannot attribute. Treat Japan as a cash-purchase market for planning purposes until you have a specific lender's own answer. And with the yen at 185.22 to the euro, a euro-based buyer's return depends on the currency at least as much as on the rent.

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Prices and Transactions

We report a 2025-against-2024 change where both years come from a named publisher, and we name the publisher beside every figure. That gives house prices for 27 of our 29 markets and transaction volume for 21.

House prices, 2025 against 2024. Fifteen of our markets appear in Eurostat's annual house price index (2015=100), last updated 2 July 2026 — one publisher, one definition, so these are directly comparable with each other:

Twelve more come from the Bank for International Settlements' selected residential property price series, which takes the most representative national index for each country and puts them on one basis. Again one publisher, one method, so these twelve are comparable with each other:

Only two of these 27 markets saw prices fall in 2025: Canada at −2.7% and New Zealand at −1.2%. Canadian transactions fell too, the one clean case of a market cooling on both sides at once. At the other end, Hungary and Portugal each put on more than 17% in a single year, and South Korea was almost perfectly flat at +0.3%.

Transaction volume, 2025 against 2024. A word on comparability first, because it changes how the numbers should be read. Ten of our markets appear in Eurostat's annual house-sales series, which counts dwellings bought by households on one definition across all of them. That is a shorter list than the fifteen in the price table above, because Eurostat's sales series covers fewer countries than its price index — the two are separate datasets. The rest come from national publishers — land registries, realtor associations, tax authorities — each counting something slightly different. The groups are not interchangeable, so we show them separately rather than as one ranked league table.

On Eurostat's single definition (annual house sales, 2025 provisional):

Ten more come from national publishers, and each counts something slightly different — the exact population is named because it matters:

The United States was unchanged: the National Association of Realtors counted 4.06 million existing-home sales in both 2024 and 2025, the lowest level in about thirty years two years running.

How much definition matters: for Spain, Eurostat's household house-sales measure gives +5.4% while the national statistics institute's transfer count gives about +11.5%; for Cyprus the gap is +3.8% against roughly +14.7% on the Department of Lands and Surveys' deeds. Both numbers can be right about different things. Neither should be quoted as "Spanish transactions in 2025" without saying which.

Prices and volume together. Hungary put on 17.3% in sales with prices up 18.3% — both rising, which is a healthier animal than price rising on shrinking volume. Four markets show the opposite shape, prices up while sales fell: Croatia (prices +13.9%, sales −4.1%), Poland (+4.9%, −1.1%), Israel (+2.2%, −12.2%) and Thailand (+1.8%, −9.1%). When prices climb as the number of actual sales falls, the price is being set by a thinner pool of buyers, which makes it a weaker guide to what you could sell for later.

Israel needs a closer look, because the annual average hides what happened. The +2.2% is real — it compares the twelve monthly readings of 2025 against the twelve of 2024, on the Central Bureau of Statistics dwelling-price index. But within 2025 the index peaked in January and fell for most of the rest of the year, ending December at 600.2 against 609.8 in January. By December it was 1.0% below the same month a year earlier, after running +7.7% year-on-year through December 2024. So Israeli prices did not rise gently through 2025 — they turned, and the annual average is positive only because 2024 finished so strongly. Set beside sales down 12.2%, this is a market that stopped, not one that drifted.

That is a caution about every figure in this chapter, not only Israel: these are annual averages, and an annual average can be positive in a year that ended lower than it began.

We present no inventory or unsold-stock view: the measure is populated for only two of the 29 markets, and a table built on two rows would invent a comparison the data cannot support.

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Regulatory and Tax

One item, and it is a deadline.

Greece: the capital gains tax holiday on property sales expires 31 December 2026. Individuals selling Greek property currently pay no Greek capital gains tax on the profit, even where the sale price is far above what they paid. The statutory rate is 15%, suspended every year since 2014 — but the current suspension runs only to the end of this year, and as of today no law has been passed extending it into 2027.

The suspension currently runs to 31 December 2026. Whether any particular sale qualifies, and what it means for a seller's Greek business-income position or Israeli tax, needs transaction-specific professional advice — timing alone is not an exemption. We are not predicting whether the suspension will be extended again; that is a question for the legislature, and no 2027 instrument has been passed.

Two conditions are worth knowing before relying on it. It applies to individuals selling privately; if the tax authority treats you as effectively trading in property rather than selling a personal asset, the profit is taxed as business income at progressive rates instead. The Greek tax authority's own guidance describes a trigger of three similar transactions within two years, with exceptions — which is not the same as simply counting properties. And a property built or bought specifically to sell, never occupied, can be treated as business activity.

This is the one regulatory item we are reporting this month. It is not a claim that nothing changed anywhere else — we have not run a jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction legal sweep across all 29 markets.

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Outlook

Everything below is already scheduled or already priced. No forecasts.

• 8–9 September — Poland. Reference rate 3.75%, unchanged since 5 March.
• 9 September — Georgia. Held at 8.25% since 29 July.
• 10 September — European Central Bank. The month's most consequential date for anyone borrowing in euros. Currently 2.25%, with euro-area inflation at 3.3% on August's flash estimate against a 2% target. If the ECB raises, the euro-mortgage route into Estonia, Slovenia, Greece, Ireland, Spain and Italy gets more expensive again.
• 15–16 September — US Federal Reserve. Currently 3.50–3.75%. Dollar borrowing costs were flat through August.
• 17 September — United Kingdom. 3.75%, held since 30 July.
• 17 September — Czechia. 3.75%, held since 6 August.
• 17–18 September — Japan. Currently 1.00%. Watch the bond market rather than the policy rate, for the reasons in the deep dive.
• 29 September — Australia. 4.35%, reached by three increases this year.
• 28 October — Canada, per the Bank's own 2 September statement.
• 31 December 2026 — Greece's capital gains suspension lapses unless legislated otherwise. Four months away, and the only hard statutory deadline in our coverage.

None of this predicts a housing market. A rate decision changes what money costs, which changes what buyers can pay, which shows up in prices quarters later. The September calendar tells you when the inputs change, not the outputs.

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Editorial

Two pieces published in the period, both live:

• "Germany's Housing Correction Created a Search Opportunity — Not a Buy Signal" (28 August) — the framing holds on the price side. German house prices rose 3.2% in 2025 on Eurostat's published index, the slowest of the fifteen markets in the table above, and Germany's score barely moved (−0.10, holding #10). We are dropping the building-permits figure that piece carried: German permit releases for 2025 point upward, not down, and by different magnitudes depending on the series, so our number needs re-deriving before it is quoted again. On price alone, "look, not buy" remains defensible.
• "Q2 2026 Investor Briefing" (8 August) — full 29-market coverage.

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Methodology Note

W7 is quarterly (methodology v2.0), currently Q2 2026 snapshotted 1 July 2026, next publishing mid-October against 1 October. W7 and the Score are distinct measures and are never presented as one.

Price, transaction and construction series are annual, not monthly, and 2025 is provisional for 27 of 29 markets. Every price and transaction figure in this edition was taken from the publisher's own current release, and the publisher is named beside it. Where a market is absent, the series exists but is not yet in this edition.

Entry prices quoted as a single number are the mid-point of a published band. Yield ranges are the published market range; city-level figures come from a separate series and are illustrative, not the same aggregation.

Market data is compiled from public sources and AI-assisted research. Figures are approximations and are not a substitute for advice from a qualified local professional. Nothing here is investment, tax or legal advice.

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Sources

Score, rank, tier, yields, entry prices, bubble labels and W7: CASABROVA production database, monthly cuts 2026-09-01 and 2026-08-01, plus macro scorecard snapshot 2026-07-01. Cycle phase: CASABROVA Master Index, most recent classifiable year per market. House prices, transaction volume and construction: publisher named inline for every figure printed. Tax and mortgage-access figures: CASABROVA legal-tax and mortgage-access records, Israeli investor profile, as-of 2026-08-01/02.

House prices: Eurostat annual house price index (`prc_hpi_a`, 2015=100, annual average), dataset updated 2 July 2026, for the fifteen markets tabled; other markets as named inline. Transaction volume: Eurostat annual house sales (`prc_hpi_hsna`, annual rate of change, 2025 provisional), same dataset update, for the ten tabled; national publishers as named inline. New Zealand sales are from the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand's 2025 year in review, published 23 January 2026. The remaining national transaction counts are from the publishers named beside each row, retrieved 5 September 2026.

The twelve non-Eurostat price changes are annual averages of the Bank for International Settlements' selected residential property price series, nominal, retrieved 5 September 2026. BIS redistributes a national index for each country — Teranet–National Bank for Canada, the Bank of Greece for Greece, Sociedad Hipotecaria Federal for Mexico, the Bank of Thailand for Thailand, the Urban Redevelopment Authority for Singapore, and the Central Bureau of Statistics for Israel, whose figure we also reproduced directly from the CBS dwelling-price index.

Exchange rates: European Central Bank euro foreign exchange reference rates, fixings of 31 July and 31 August 2026, with dollar cross-rates derived from those fixings. The UAE dirham is quoted from its 3.6725 dollar peg. The Georgian lari is from the National Bank of Georgia, observation effective 28 August 2026. The Israeli representative rate of 2 September is from the Bank of Israel, which also publishes the 3.25% policy rate, its 3 September effective date and Israeli inflation of 1.5%.

Euro-area inflation: Eurostat flash estimate, 1 September 2026 (August 3.3%, July 2.9%). Slovenian purchase eligibility: Slovenian Ministry of Justice guidance on acquisition of real-estate ownership by foreigners, under which EU, OECD and EFTA nationals require no reciprocity determination; Israel has been an OECD member since 2010.

Central bank decisions verified against each institution's own website:

• Bank of Canada maintains the policy rate at 2¼% — 2 September 2026
• OCR increased by 25 basis points to 2.75% — Reserve Bank of New Zealand, 2 September 2026
• NBP interest rates — reference rate 3.75%, in effect from 2026-03-05 · NBP 2026 meeting schedule

Greece capital gains status verified against published guidance current to September 2026:

• Taxes on Real Estate in Greece (updated for 2026) — Elxis
• Capital Gains Tax on Selling Property in Greece — Suspended to 2026
• Greek property law tracker — BUY GREECE
• Greece Property Tax Guide 2026 — Ellytic

No paid data provider was used. No figure was estimated where the source was empty.