According to real estate news, Tel Aviv is currently the most expensive city in the Middle East for now the 3rd straight year, although it is the only one in the region that’s moved down in the ranking compared to the survey last year, from #14 to #17. Tokyo knocked Moscow (# 3) off the top spot in the 2009 survey, becoming the world’s most expensive city, followed by Osaka in second place. While the vast majority of European cities have fallen in the ranking, most Middle Eastern cities apart from Israel have experienced a reverse trend. Dubai and Abu Dhabi have risen significantly in the ranking, moving from #52 to #20 and #65 to #26.
“The steep decline of rental prices in both Oslo and London, coupled with the fall in the value of UK’s pound and Norwegian krone against the US$, have caused all these cities to simply plummet in the ranking,” Constantin-Métral said. The city of New York, which last year amusingly had a lower cost of living than Tel Aviv, is a new entry in the top ten, jumping from #22 to #8, as did Beijing, now #9, up from #20. The survey covers 143 cities across six different continents and measures the comparative cost of over 200 items in each location, including housing, food, transport, clothing, household goods and entertainment, among others.
Though some lifestyle news magazines reported other wise, “As a direct impact of the economic downturn over the last year, we have observed significant fluctuations in most of the global currencies, which have had a profound impact on this year’s ranking,” said Nathalie Constantin-Métral, a tops researcher at Mercer. “Many currencies now, including the euro and even the usually steady British pound, have now weakened considerably against a strong US dollar, causing a large number of European cities to plummet in the rankings.
“As most European currencies have weakened against the dollar, it has become more costly for companies based in this region to send expatriates and their families to US cities.” The majority of European cities moved down in the ranking, with Warsaw experiencing the most dramatic change, plummeting 78 places from#35 to #113. London and Oslo, which were in the top 10, have dropped 13 and 10 places respectively. The same trend can be seen in Australia, New Zealand and India. Sydney dropped 51 places, from #15 to #66, and Mumbai fell to #66 from #48.
The top 20 costliest cities are:
- Tokyo
- Osaka
- Moscow
- Geneva
- Hong Kong
- Zurich
- Copenhagen
- New York
- Beijing
- Singapore
- Milan
- Shanghai
- Paris
- Oslo
- Caracas
- London
- Tel Aviv
- Rome
- Helsinki
- Dubai
