With homeowners and economists worldwide fascinated by the fate of the property market, one thing is clear: the recent global boom in property prices has been the steepest, most durable and geographically widespread of the past 35 years.

For the bulk of the world's leading economies, the upturn has far exceeded previous ones. It has lasted at least twice as long as previous booms in the US, Sweden, Norway and the Netherlands. And over the past decade, housing markets have showed an unprecedented resilience to broader economic downturns. Only a handful of countries have failed to share in the bounty - Germany, Japan and Switzerland.