Luxury residential prices in Taipei might continue to fall in the third quarter by 5 to 8 percent, REPro Knight Frank vice president of research Andy Huang (黃舒衛) said yesterday.

REPro Knight Frank, the Taiwanese branch of global real-estate consultancy Knight Frank, told a news conference that Taipei ranks 39th on its Prime Global Cities Index for the second quarter.

The index, which tracks the movement of luxury residential prices across 41 cities worldwide, found that prices in Taipei fell 6.5 percent in the 12 months to June.

While prices might continue to fall in the third quarter, Huang said that the number of luxury residential transactions would remain steady, especially with the mayoral election next year.

Overall, the index increased 4.4 percent in the first six months, although the two cities topping the list — Guangzhou, China; and Toronto, Canada — saw growth contract.

Taipei fell behind compared with the other major cities of the “Four Asian Tigers” — Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea — the index showed.

Taipei was the only city of the four to show sustained price drops, with Seoul experiencing annual growth of 19.9 percent, Hong Kong 8.1 percent and Singapore 3.5 percent, it showed.