If property markets competed globally and it were an Olympic sport – who would be the winners, losers and ones to watch?

It’s not quite a spectator sport, but  the Knight Frank Global House Price Index makes for an entertaining read nevertheless. The latest figures have been published and the results are in for the first quarter of this year.

Ireland would retire due to injury. At an annual drop of 11.9% and ranking 48^th its sorry economic state is cemented with devalued properties lying empty all around the country.

Bringing up the rear, in a surprisingly solid performance would be Dubai which, in the past six months has finally showed a positive rise in prices by 2.1%.

But can the UK, which is placed at a middling 29^th with an increase of 1% after a year of decline, regain its position at the front of the pack?

For the moment, Asia will take gold, silver and bronze; Hong Kong, India and Taiwan dominate the top of the rankings this quarter although Hong Kong’s out-of-control inflation (which the government is trying to cool), has risen recently to 24.2%, which could have serious consequences in a year’s time, and cause them to drop to a level pegging with Europe.

On Asia’s heels, the wild cards for overtaking Asia  (and a safe bet for buying property in), are Israel and France. According to Knight Frank, Israel has been steadily in the top ten for the past two years and has a far more stable and controlled inflation rate than Asia. France has leaped from 30^th to 6^th place with an 8.6% rise since 2010. Knight Frank believes that the country’s greater productivity has impacted on wages, consumer spending and property demand.

So can the underdogs overtake Asia in a year’s time? Only time will tell; on your marks, set, go.

PrimeLocation had been pondering this pub-quiz question ever since an invite arrived in our inbox last week, beckoning the team to join a select gathering at the Westbury Hotel in Mayfair. 

The RSVP invite mentioned cocktails and canapes and encouraged us to join upmarket Portuguese and Swiss property experts from agent Sotheby’s Realty International. A more unlikely mob is hard to imagine – clipped, tight lipped Swiss suits mixing with louche, heavily tanned ex beach bums.

The reality was very different. An eclectic mix of PRs, accountants and estate agents from London, Europe and even Miami gathered in a small back room of this posh hotel; there were some distinct accents and the odd good sun tan as well as a buzz from the excitement of being in London for the night.

Over Moet & Chandon bubbles and smoked salmon blinis everyone chatted and predictably shared the same view – it’s a must to own a property abroad. And if you can’t choose between the skiing in Switzerland or the sunbathing in Portugal, why not have a property for each season?

So what do one of Europe’s richest countries and one that’s nearly bankrupt have in common and why are we having a party for them? Apart from the obvious sales push from the agents about the luxury resorts and apartments for sale, it was a celebration of their favourable tax regimes; something of a hot topic for London’s big earners at the moment, as the UK’s higher taxes and regulation bear down on them.

John Duggan from PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Portugal office stands up at the end of a small, informal presentation and cliams that it’s not only Switzerland that has all the tax trump cards.

Despite Portugal’s catastrophic government finances at the moment, we are told it’s a great place for foreign buyers to invest – relocating residents enjoy a  10-year tax holiday plus exemption from tax on foreign pensions and exemptions on investment and rental income. At the mention of in-depth tax and finance we began to glaze over but Mr Duggan has promised to write us a guide explaining in more detail how to invest in Portuguese property, so watch this space.

A villa with private pool at the luxury Pine Cliffs Resort in Portugal

As well as the tax benefits, a tanned Artur Simes showed us his model village of his luxury Algarve resort, Pine Cliffs. Having washed down buckets of champagne and too many prawn skewers, we were somewhat impressed and fancied buying one. Simes is walking proof of the 300 days of sunshine the area gets and he claimed a guaranteed five percent return on investment for three years if you want to let out our property through them.

So what about Switzerland? Many a banker knows the benefits of relocating there. It has one of the lowest taxation rates of any western nation and its taxes are based on your expenditure and standard of living rather than income or assets. And if you’re looking for a property to suit the well-off lifestyle, Du Parc - an imposing Belle Epoque mansion, converted from a hotel to luxury apartments, on the shore of Lake Geneva is a great place to start.

Du Parc Kempinski Residences in Switzerland

But the time had come to go home. The last of the Moet bottles had been upended and the warm Spring evening’s air beckoned. Thanks to Sotheby’s International Realty for the hospitaltiy hospitality.

Formula One legend Ayrton Senna died at the wheel of his racing car, but remains an idol to millions worldwide. His star is set to rise again when he becomes the subject of a documentary film to be released in UK cinemas in June.

Ahead of that release, Primelocation International can bring you news that the Portuguese villa owned by the double world champion in the three years before his accident on May 1 1994 is now on the market and could be yours – providing you have a Grand Prix-style income to pay the 10m euro price tag.

Senna designed the home as his European base for the eight months of the typical F1 season and would  return to his native Brazil each winter; for that reason it is larger than the typical Algarve holiday home.

The villa sits on the exclusive Quinta do Lago resort and boasts six bedrooms and seven bathrooms, a games den, home cinema and study, plus what the selling agent calls ‘a cosy winter snug’ – that’s a sunken lounge with a fireplace. There is also a three bedroom guest annexe where Senna entertained, amongst others, fellow-Brazilian Rubens Barrichello, now a F1 veteran in his own right and another Algarve resident.

The grounds of Senna’s villa are large – the whole plot is 113,000 square feet – and reflects the driver’s reputation as a fitness devotee. There is a large pool, floodlit tennis court and football pitch as well as a four-hole putting green, trampoline and woodland.

Andre Jordan, the Brazilian who designed the resort back in 1970, says Senna was “exactly the sort of person Quinta do Lago was created for” – well-known, wealthy “but wanting to completely relax in an informal yet exclusive environment.”

The villa is located on Avenida Ayrton Senna – renamed in his honour in 1995 – a sign that whatever happens to the home in the future, the memory of its original owner will live on.

The property is on the market through Savills International

When primelocation wants Hollywood bling that bucks the trend, we look no further than “The Fortress” – the name movie veteran Anjelica Huston has given her LA home now on sale.

At first sight the building, completed in 1994 by sculptor Robert Graham - Huston’s husband until his death in 2008 – looks like a warehouse. But it sits four-square in Venice Beach, one of the plushest parts of Los Angeles and close to the estates owned by other Hollywood glitterati like Kate Beckinsale, Alec Baldwin and Francis Ford Coppola. 

Huston, perhaps best known for her role in The Addams Family franchise and The Witches in the 1990s – as well as being a long-time girlfriend of Jack Nicholson - says she and Robert Graham were inspired by the privacy of the Californian convent in which they spent their honeymoon in 1992.

So they created The Fortress, a functional Bauhaus design complete with girders and struts, steeply walled on its boundaries to keep out prying eyes. But step inside and you see a huge tropical garden, a swimming pool and a garden jacuzzi as part of almost 10,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor studio and gallery space.

There are also almost 4,000 square feet of interior living quarters including a library, dramatic galleries looking over three-storey studio and dance-floor areas, three bedrooms and five bathrooms. There’s also a basement games room and gym for that compulsory LA daily workout.

The property went on sale last year and was first advertised only in California but now, with even Hollywood stars hit by a declining US property market, it is being marketed in Europe by estate agency Engel & Volkers.

The publicity in Europe concentrates on the Mediterranean and French design influences and the Venice Beach boho chic reputation of the house – magazine Vanity Fair says it is found most easily by heading for the tattoo parlours and marijuana shops across the street.

But despite the continuing US downturn and change in global marketing strategy for the house, the asking price remains unchanged at a cool $18m. The owner is clearly not the only stellar characteristic of this particular LA home…

On paper it looks like just another 114-acre farm for sale in a New York rural backwater, but to anyone who follows polo it is where  the sport’s most famous annual events takes place.

The Mercedes Benz Polo Challenge, hosted by the Bridgehampton Polo Club at Two Trees Farm, is a must-attend event on New York’s social calendar with Ralph Lauren, Brooke Shields, Chloe Sevigny, Christine Brinkley and Steven Spielberg all regular attendees. This year the event took place on 24th July and both Amber Rose and Kourtney Kardashian boosted the celebrity count.

But all this is now up for sale and for a lot less than two years ago when the property was first reported for sale. Back in 2008 Two Trees Farm was put on the market by owner and Brooklyn-based developer David Walentas for $95 million but the property is today for sale at $75 million.

Although this sounds like a lot for a polo farm despite the price reduction, Two Trees Farm offers both an idyllic and sought-after location and a lot of property.

It’s near Bridgehampton in the middle of Long Island’s most expensive patch of land, the seaside resort area of The Hamptons – a group of 24 villages and hamlets around the towns of Southampton and East Hampton. The area  is where America’s rich and famous like to own homes and current locals include Renée Zellweger and Nathan Lane.

Anyone considering buying Two Trees Farm, which was bought in 1993 by Mr Walentas for $2 million, has to be into horses. As well as two houses, an eight-unit apartment building (for grooms), pool and tennis court there are three barns, two indoor riding arenas and two polo fields.

The property is currently being sold via the New York office of Sotheby’s Realty International.

What do the British really want when they escape the UK’s drizzly, damp and good-mood murdering weather and flee southward towards sunnier climes to find their much dreamed-of holiday home?

If the brochures are to believed what counts are nearby beaches plus authentic local restaurants or bars and decent shops.

But is this really what British buyers want or merely an idyll? The question has preoccupied many developers and estate agent over the years but now it’s ever more pressing as British buyers become more choosy as the credit crunch bites.

One conundrum is whether we want ‘real’ versions of places like Spain, Portugal or France or merely faux editions that, beneath the stylised architecture, are really little Britains offering the familiar rather than the foreign.

Traditional or new: a recently-built property in Crete that could pass for a converted farmhouse.

Most coastal strips in southern Europe offer both these days. For example, venture over to the Praia D’El Rey resort in Portugal on the country’s Silver Coast above Lisbon and you’ll find a small town of villas and apartment blocks built in a style that mimics that local vernacular but offers a five-star hotel if you tire of cooking your own food.

On the other hand, ten miles along the coast and inland a bit there are country villas for sale built by Lisbonites forty years ago that ooze a bit more authenticity.

There are, though, places where an acceptable middle way can be navigated between new and ‘real’. This is most obvious to see in the Greek islands, and in particular on Crete. There builders know that to attract British buyers – who are usually purchasing with an eye on retirement on the island at some point – they have to offer a fairly unique product.

Because Brits treasure the island for its relatively intact architectural vernacular and the swathes of similar-looking brown-tile roof villas built on some stretches of the Spanish costas over the past decade are usually a no-no on Crete.

Therefore new-build and resale houses on the island have to look like converted farm outhouses but offer all of the comforts Brits expect, as research by island developer Said Marie of Caversham-Barnes recently revealed.

“They told us they wanted a private heated pool with a huge sun terrace, air-conditioning – but also central heating for use during Crete’s brief winter period – gardens and a garage,” he says.

“Those were our design criteria and, because potential buyers can see that we have taken the trouble to build what they actually want, we are selling the properties despite the recession.”

The lesson for buyers currently looking in particularly for a newbuild property overseas is to find a developer which has made an attempt to understand the British – for example it is only recently that high-end kitchens and bathroom have started to become standard within properties overseas, many years after it has been standard in the UK.

It’s one of the most popular countries for people moving abroad, and with year-round sunshine, a good standard of living and a property market that’s not dissimilar to the UK, it’s not surprising. If you’re feeling tempted to head down under, then here are some useful facts on property, emigration and living in Australia.

• Foreign buyers are able to purchase property in Australia, but you may first need to get permission from the Foreign Investment Review Board.

• If you’re renting property, perhaps whilst looking for somewhere to buy, you will have to sign a tenancy agreement and pay a bond, which is usually about four weeks rent in advance.

• Like the UK, property in Australia is bought and sold via real estate agents, but it’s also very popular to buy and sell homes at auctions.

• Non-resident property owners are taxed on Australian income and capital gains tax. This is a rate of between 29% and 45%. If you become a full-time resident, you won’t get charged capital gains tax.

• If you have a permanent resident visa and live in Australia, you’ll need to take an Australian driving test after three months – even if you already have a license to drive in the UK.

• It’s worth bearing in mind that skilled workers are often in demand in Australia. For details about visas, and the Australian General Skilled Migration Program, see the Australian Visa Bureau website.

• If you’re feeling inspired by the new film, Australia, starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman, then you may be interested to know that it was filmed in various areas of Western Australia, New South Wales, Queensland and the Northern Territory. You can search Primelocation.com for property for sale in Australia.