Band 8+: You should spend about 20 minutes on this task. The chart below shows changes in average house prices in five different cities between 1990 and 2002 compared with the average house prices in 1989. Summarize the information by selecting and reporting the main features and make comparisons where relevant.

The chart compares the cost of an average house in five major cities during a thriteen-year period, starting from 1989.

We can see that house prices generally fell from 1990 to 1995, but rose in most of the cities during the 1996-2002 period. London experienced by far the greatest changes in the cost of an average home.

During the five years after 1989, the cost of houses in both Tokyo and London saw the deepest decrease of around seven percent, roughly two percent higher than that in New York. By contrast, house prices on average saw a minimal increase of approximately two percent in Madrid and Frankfurt.

In the later half of the period, the cost of a house in London saw the highest increase of about 12 percent above the 1989 prices. Homebuyers in New York also had to pay significantly more, while houses in Tokyo sill remained cheaper than in 1989. A rise of around two percent compared to the 1989 prices had to be paid by Madrid homeowners, whereas prices in Frankfurt relatively stayed unchanged