Zurich and Tokyo are the only major cities facing a high risk of a housing bubble in 2026, according to the latest UBS Global Real Estate Bubble Index. Zurich leads the 23-city index with a score of 1.69, followed by Tokyo at 1.54, with UBS classifying scores above 1.5 as high risk. Miami ranks third globally at 1.41, placing it in the elevated-risk category alongside Dubai, Seoul, Geneva and Lisbon, while Los Angeles, Sydney, Frankfurt, Toronto, Vancouver, Munich, Hong Kong, Singapore and Milan carry moderate risk and Paris, London, New York, San Francisco and São Paulo are classified as low risk. Across the cities studied, inflation-adjusted home prices rose an average of just 0.5% over the past four quarters, slowing from 1.4% in mid-2025, with Seoul the strongest market as real prices rose more than 10% while Toronto and Vancouver saw real prices fall around 10%. UBS highlighted the growing role of financial wealth in housing demand, saying the AI investment boom is creating concentrated pockets of new wealth that help prime residential properties outperform broader markets, with the divide particularly visible in San Francisco and Seoul. The bank expects elevated financing costs to continue weighing on housing prices in the near term, noting that in most cities the direct cost of owning a 650-square-foot home exceeds 40% of a highly skilled worker's income, though it stressed the index measures the risk of substantial mispricing rather than forecasting a crash.
UBS Group AGUBS is the publisher of the Global Real Estate Bubble Index; the report itself is not a company-specific financial development for UBS.
