Hong Kong has the world’s highest average rents for expatriate workers, well above Tokyo, New York and London, according to a study released Wednesday.

Altogether, Asia accounted for half of the top 10 most expensive cities for rental apartments for expatriates, while Nairobi was the world’s cheapest.

The survey was carried out by international human resources consultancy ECA among relocation companies, real estate agents and foreign workers, and took unfurnished three-bedroom apartments as a base as they were the most commonly rented by expatriates.

In Hong Kong, such a flat in an area popular with expatriates would fetch nearly 8,600 US dollars a month.

That is by some distance more expensive than the average rental price for foreigners in Tokyo, which ranked the world’s second on a little under 7,360 dollars a month.

“Comparing the cost of renting an unfurnished three bedroom apartment, the data shows that Hong Kong is by far the most expensive city,” said Lee Quane, ECA’s general manager in Hong Kong.

The high rental prices in Hong Kong are due to lack of space as well as an increasing demand for luxury developments as many financial firms strengthen their presence within the city, ECA said.

After Hong Kong and Tokyo, the third most expensive city was New York where a three-bedroom flat for an expatriate costs an average 7,250 dollars to rent, then Moscow, Seoul, London, Mumbai, Shanghai, Caracas and Paris.

Further down the scale, large increases were noticed in rental prices over the past decade in Doha and Dubai, up 130 and 100 percent respectively.

Nevertheless, Hong Kong’s rental prices have fallen.

Quane said the residential rental market here boomed in 1996, a year before the territory was returned to Chinese rule, but has since dropped steadily due to government policies cooling the market and the Asian financial crisis.

Nairobi is the world’s cheapest city for foreigners to rent a three-bedroom apartment at around 1,090 dollars a month, nearly eight times cheaper than in Hong Kong.

Source: Channel News Asia