Vancouverites who complain about the city’s notoriously high cost of living aren’t imagining things: the city is now the most expensive place to live in North America.
Canada’s Pacific metropolis nudged out glamourous New York and pricey Los Angeles to claim the top spot on continent, according to the Economist Magazine Worldwide Cost of Living Survey released yesterday.
Ironically, Vancouverites can consider moving to the Big Apple to save money.
In fact, Vancouver is now the 37th most expensive city in the world, up from 72nd last year.
In October 2011, Royal LePage reported the average price for a detached bungalow in Vancouver (including West and North Vancouver) rose 17 per cent to $1.02 million in the third quarter compared with the same period a year ago.
The price of a standard Vancouver condominium was up 5.1 per cent to $513,500. The average priced home in Vancouver is now 11.2 times the average family income, a figure many economists call unsustainable.
Zurich and Tokyo claimed the spots for number one and number two most expensive cities in the world, respectively.
Los Angeles is the second most expensive city in North America. The cheapest city in the world in which to live is Karachi, Pakistan.
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