WHICH CITIES OF THE WORLD HAVE THE MOST EXPENSIVE REAL ESTATE? HINT: IT'S NOT THE UNITED STATES

Credit Sesame offers a global perspective on America's (relatively affordable) real estate market.

Surprisingly, not New York. In fact, compared with select cities in Europe and Asia, Manhattan’s downright cheap.

According to a chart by Credit Sesame, the average cost per square foot in Manhattan is $1,068. That’s a pretty good deal when compared to other world destinations:  

• Singapore - $1,561
• Oslo - $2,099
• Paris - $3,287

Those prices are enough to buy a house in Detroit, with a couple large leftover.

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The point that Credit Sesame, a money management company, wants to make is that, for all the talk about housing inflation in the United States, the global market offers some humbling perspective. Yes, New York is expensive by American standards. In Houston, the cheapest of the American cities surveyed here, you can buy a place for just $54 a square foot. But it isn’t particularly outlandish compared with other major urban centers like:

• London - $1,590
• Hong Kong  - $1,118
• Beirut - $1448

Real estate in Al-Kūt, Iraq--a city southeast of Baghdad that's arguably not the world’s most desirable place to live--costs three times that of property in Phoenix (to be fair, also not the world’s most desirable place to live).

A word on the methodology: Meticulous science, this is not. Credit Sesame gathered data covering three years and 14 sources, ranging from Factiva and Trulia to the New York Times and the Iraq Daily Times. Real estate prices, of course, fluctuate year to year and probably weren't calculated the same way across all 14 sources, so what you have here is an imperfect comparison. Still, the lesson abides: Be glad you don’t live in Paris.

COMMENTARY:   $54,000 is the median price in Houston?  Geez.   I think I would live in something more upscale like 

Courtesy of an article dated October 5, 2011 appearing in Fast Company Design

 

 

Comments

[christopher Pia]

Interesting article, not sure how i cam across this but interesting read.

[christopher Pia]

Interesting article, I am not sure how I came across an real estate article, but interesting read.

[hamptons real estate]

Unbelievable! It is probably partly because the Euro is so high these days...