Bulgaria dropped from the top of the rankings in terms of highest spikes in housing property prices, with an increase of just 3.3% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2009, according to the latest report of British property advisors Knight Frank.

The country slipped to ninth spot from year-ago’s second, when home prices skyrocketed by 30%.

However, the year-on-year rise from January to March comes with a decline of 1.2% from the previous quarter.

Israel strode atop of the first-quarter table with a 10.9% increase, followed by the Czech Republic, where home prices soared by 9.9%.

Bulgaria was leapfrogged also by Switzerland, India, Indonesia and Russia. Dubai and Singapore trailed at the bottom of the table with falls of 32% and 23%, respectively.

Thirty of the 46 countries in the ranking saw their housing property prices collapse, with Dubai and Singapore again marking the steepest drops of a respective 40% and 16.2%.

The worldwide economic deterioration and the mounting unemployment continue to pinch the global housing market, according to the analysts, who predict that the sector will stay in the doldrums by the end of the year.