CENTURY 21 Canada survey finds Hong Kong to be the world's most expensive city to buy property

VANCOUVER, BC--(Marketwired - September 27, 2017) - Headlines around the world indicate that housing prices are climbing rapidly. When cities are stacked up against each other, Hong Kong ranks as the most expensive city to purchase property with the average single-family home in the Kowloon area priced at CAD$3,570.23 per-square-foot (APPSF). This is 3.5 times more expensive than Beijing, the second most expensive city at $1,005.31 APPF for a single-family home.

These numbers are the result of a recent CENTURY 21 Canada survey of 75 cities in 27 countries detailing the average-price-per-square-foot (APPSF) for a home and found that generally, the PPSF is higher for a condo than for a single-family home.

The data has also revealed that a single-family home in Canada's West Vancouver, is closely equated to San Francisco, averaging $824.47 APPSF and $934.96 APPSF respectively, while a condo is downtown Vancouver comes in at $1,172.80 APPSF compared to $1,454.57 APPSF in San Francisco. Meanwhile the downtown Toronto condo market is most closely comparable to Tokyo ($833.20 APPSF and $775.72 APPSF respectively). While the price-per-square-foot for a single-family home in Montreal ($519.51 APPSF) is most closely comparable to New York City ($508.62 APPSF).

CENTURY 21 Canada conducted a similar survey in 2007. At that time, Singapore ranked as one of the least-expensive places in which to purchase a typical executive home, with a price tag of $373,857.95. Ten years later, in 2017, that average price came in at more than six times this value, at $2,261,436.47.

Hong Kong also ranks at the most expensive city to purchase a condo with the average price in the downtown area at $2330.81 APPSF, this is 1.6 times more expensive than Al Khobar (Saudi Arabia), the second most expensive at $1,479.92 APPSF.

Shanghai came in as the third most expensive for a single-family house at $955.39 APPSF and San Francisco came in as the third most expensive for a condo at $1,454.57 APPSF.

"Canada's housing market has attracted much attention over the past few years. These numbers show just how we rank on a global scale," says CENTURY 21 Canada Executive Vice-President Brian Rushton. "While prices are no doubt expensive, we really rank in the middle of the pack when compared to other global cities."

On the other end of the spectrum, Maricaibo-Zuila in Venezuela is the least expensive city to buy property, with a single-family home priced at $10.17 APPSF.

Notes to Editor:

About CENTURY 21 Canada
CENTURY 21 Canada Limited Partnership (century21.ca) is a real estate master franchisor with complete rights to the CENTURY 21® brand in Canada.

The CENTURY 21 System is one of the world's largest and most recognized residential real estate franchise sales organization with approximately 7,450 independently owned and operated franchised broker offices worldwide and over 115,000 sales professionals. CENTURY 21 provides comprehensive technology, marketing, training, management, and administrative support for its members in 79 countries and territories worldwide.

How the information was gathered by CENTURY 21 Canada
CENTURY 21 Canada asked its brokers in countries around the globe to provide the price-per-square-meter for a typical home in the downtown area for three cities in each nation. The date gathered in this study included; Average sales price, Average size - square meter and Average size - square feet. From this data CENTURY 21 Canada calculated the price-per-square-foot for each of these cities. The value was then translated from US dollars to Canadian dollars at a rate of $1.23 USD to $1.00 CAD, the live exchange rate on September 18, 2017.

*Condo - An apartment unit that is individually owned, but part of a larger complex.
*Single family home – A typical domestic unit that is large enough to be inhabited by a family with a child
*Typical executive home - The buyer is an executive working downtown. The home is typical for an executive in a city or metropolitan region. For the purpose of the survey, the term 'typical' is defined as the type of home that is purchased most frequently by an executive buyer.