France has been ranked the most transparent real estate market in Continental Europe and 5th worldwide, ahead of the Netherlands in 7th place, Ireland in 9th and Germany in 12th place.

France has been ranked the most transparent real estate market in Continental Europe and 5th worldwide, ahead of the Netherlands in 7th place, Ireland in 9th and Germany in 12th place.

The UK was ranked as the most transparent country in the 2014 edition of JLL's Global Real Estate Transparency Index (GRETI), followed by the US, Australia and New Zealand.

France was the best performing non-Anglo-Saxon country. It moved up two places in the worldwide ranking to 5th place out of 102 countries compared to the previous survey in 2012.

Germany, by contrast, is placed 12th in the 2014 global ranking.

The 8th edition of GRETI is divided into five categories: real estate market performance measures, access to market data, governance of listed companies, legislation and transaction processes

‘Even though France has been one of the leading countries for many years (France joined the top 10 most transparent markets in 2006), 5th place is the highest position the French market has achieved,’ said Virginie Houzé, head of research at JLL in France.

‘In terms of sustainable development, the French market was once again on the podium alongside Australia and England,’ Houzé added.

Over the last 15 years, France has moved from the status of 'transparent market' to 'highly transparent' due to general improvement across the board.

The improvement in France’s 2014 ranking was due in large part to technological improvements, such as ‘open data’, which have strengthened transparency in terms of understanding market fundamentals.

Examples include the State’s approach to publishing certain information from real estate tax files and the emergence of crowd-sourcing platforms that provide publicly available collaborative databases.

CLICK HERE for the key findings of the Global Real Estate Transparency Index.