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London overtakes Hong Kong as the world’s most expensive city

In a report by propertty consultancy Savills, London has overtaken Hong Kong as the most expensive city to live and work in the world.

New York and Paris came next in line, completing the top four where the combined costs of renting residential and office space top $100,000 per employee per year.

London property prices have jumped 18.4% in the last year, with the typical combined cost of renting housing and leasing an office for a team of office executives for 12 months in London has increased to $120k (£73.8k) per employee.

Hong Kong is close behind at $115.7k. New York and Paris were in third and fourth place, at $107.8k and $105.6 respectively.

Sydney came eighth at $63.6k, Shanghai tenth at $43.1k and Rio eleventh at $32.1k. Mumbai was bottom of the table at $29.7k.

Overall, the cost of residential and commercial accommodation in London has increased by 39% since 2008, according to the report.

Despite this increase, London is still way off Hong Kong’s 2011 figure, which his hit a record $128,000 a year.

Yolande Barnes, director Savills World Research said: “This year has seen much more modest real estate price growth in nearly all our world cities and some have shown small falls, we expect this subdued trend to continue as investor interest and market activity shifts to second-tier cities.

“This lower level of price growth means that currency fluctuations have produced some of the biggest changes in our rankings which are expressed in dollar terms. For multinationals looking at their local costs, it is this which is likely to exercise them more than property markets over the next year”.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ellen Forster .