(ANSA) - BELGRADE, 11 LUG - Budapest and Sofia are among the cities in the world that registered the highest increase in price of residential housing in the first quarter of 2018, in a comparison with the same period of 2017, a research recently made public by the international consulting company Knight Frank shows.

According to the 'The Global Residential Cities Index', which tracks the movement in average residential prices in 150 cities, prices in Budapest increased by 14.4 per cent year on year, the seventh highest rate in the world. Sofia registered a 11.3% increase, placing the Bulgarian capital at the 18th place in the ranking. Strong increases in residential prices were also recorded in Zagreb (+9.8%), Riga (+8%), Skopje (7.2%), Bucharest (+7.1%) and Warsaw (+6%).

The Eu statistical office Eurostat has recently informed that the houses prices in Europe rose 11 % in the EU between 2010 and 2017, with highest increases during this period were recorded in Estonia (+73%), Sweden (+56%), Austria (+49%), Latvia (+47%) and Luxembourg (+40 %). Data from Eurostat show that in 2017 Bulgaria (+8.7%) and Hungary (+7.5%) registered an increase in house prices year-on-year higher than the EU average (+4.4%). (ANSA).