Asia: Round trip transaction costs (%).

The total cost of buying and then re-selling a residential property, including all costs (except the sale price itself), expressed as percentage of the property value.

Assumptions:

• The property is purchased by a non-resident foreigner in the country where he/she is buying
• The property is worth US$250,000 (250,000 for Europe)
• The property is paid in cash
• The property is a condominium located in a major city
• The property is not newly-built
• The property is bought from an individual and not a developer or real estate holding company.

Transaction costs can be broken down into four major cost areas:

• Registration costs
• Real estate agent fees
• Legal fees
• Sales and transfer taxes

Other incidental costs (survey fees, residency permit cost, or company setup costs), are not included in our calculations. In most cases value added tax (VAT) is not included, because our figures reflect the purchase of old, not new, properties.

Costs paid by buyers and sellers vary widely. Agents and lawyers costs are often negotiable. Buyers of expensive properties often pay proportionately lower agents fees. For the full spectrum of possible transaction costs see the Country | Buying Guide.

For fuller details see the Data FAQ.

Source: Global Property Guide Research

Statistics in Asia. Asia has surprisingly good house price statistics, though the quality varies greatly. The ex-British colonies tend to have good house price statistics Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia all have excellent houses price time series, the best being Hong Kong, where the data is arguably richer than in the UK, since there are official rents statistics. However in the Indian sub-continent, only India has house price statistics, and this only in a new series, not yet available on the web.

Japan publishes no house price statistics. Its ex-colonies do better: Korea has a good house price time-series, and Taiwan also has one.

Indonesia has house price statistics, and so does China (both of questionable quality). In Thailand, the Bank of Thailand publishes a time-series. In the Philippines, Colliers produces residential property data.

No house-price time-series are produced in Vietnam, Cambodia, or Laos.