Vancouver Ranks 107th in the World Despite it Being the Most Expensive in Canada
Following a faster than expected market recovery, Vancouver has once again taken its place as Canada’s most expensive city surpassing Toronto which had previously occupied this position but according to the cost of living survey by Mercer, Vancouver even though is the giant in Canada was ranked the 107 most expensive city in the world.
The city has also managed to climb higher this year reaching thirty-five places from its previous position last year, overtaking Toronto which is at the 119th position. But Vancouver represented Canada as the most expensive Canadian city in the 2017 Cost of Living Study. Following Toronto were Montreal and Calgary taking the 129th and 143rd position respectively.
With regards to the hottest Canadian housing markets, Ottawa ranked the lowest at 152nd place.
The increase in home prices across the Canadian housing market was mainly as a result of the increase in value of the Canadian currency and this resulted to Canadian markets getting higher ranking positions.
The Mercer survey is carried out in 209 cities across five continents and over 200 variables are taken into consideration when making the measurements such as housing, transportation, household goods, food, clothing and entertainment.
The results from the Mercer survey are used by governments in different cities to determine the buying power of their workers that are working in other countries.
In an overall outlook, Asian and European cities are the top priciest places for people working abroad especially in countries like Hong Kong (2), Tokyo (3), Zurich (4), and Singapore (5). The priciest city in terms of goods and security is Luanda (1), the capital of Angola.
Some of the other cities that were also part of the top ten global ranking for the priciest city to live abroad include Seoul, South Korea (6), Geneva, Switzerland (7), Shanghai, China (8), New York, US. (9) and Bern, Switzerland (10).
The most affordable cities in the world that were at the bottom list of the most expensive cities are Tunis, Tunisia (209), Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan (208), and Skopje, Macedonia (206).
This new ranking report left people in Vancouver to marvel over the fact that despite their concerns that the housing market is very expensive, it was ranked 107th in the world and it is more affordable than 17 housing cities in the U.S. including Seattle (76), Minneapolis (86) and Detroit (95).
Interestingly, in a different report, Detroit was considered to be the worst American city to reside in.
