Despite being overvalued the the Austrian national bank by 22 percent, property prices in Vienna increased by 8.1 percent in the first three months of the year, driven up by Russian, German and Arab investors interested in luxury assets. While the figures may seem excessive given that properties in the rest of the country are undervalued on average by 8 percent, Vienna property prices are in line with other major European cities, according to the national bank’s chief economist, Doris Ritzberger-Grünwald. In fact, prices in Vienna fell by 3.3 percent y-o-y in Q1, while cities outside the capital increased to 2.2 percent from 1.9 percent the previous year.
