Beijing: Planet Earth's Least Affordable Rent
The next time you negotiate with your landlord, remind him or her how lucky they are – Beijing rents are the highest in the world as a percentage of net earnings.
That also makes them the least affordable, according to the Global Cities Business Alliance (GCBA), which "provides a unique forum where business and city leaders come together to define, shape and implement initiatives for improving cities’ performance in the changing global economy," their website says.
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Not only are Beijing's rents considered least affordable, they sky over rents in the next two cities on the list of 15 that GCBA assembled. People earning an average salary in Beijing (the survey did not indicate what it used as that baseline figure) face rents 1.1 to 1.5 times their income, The Financial Times reported. GCBA set 30 percent or less of net income as the standard for "affordable."
Residents of Abu Dhabi, UAE, the second city on the list, pay about 70 percent of income, and residents of Hong Kong about 65 percent. Only Sao Paulo, Brazil, and Boston, USA, were under the 30 percent mark.
The group blamed high housing prices and a small supply of available land for resulting high rental costs.
Beijing was named the billionaire capital of the world earlier this year, taking the title from New York, although at least one prominent publication disputed the survey's methodology.
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