Cape Town on exclusive list

Johannesburg - Monte Carlo in Monaco is far and away the planet's most expensive residential property location, followed by Moscow and London.

South Africa's richest neck of the woods for property is Cape Town, which occupies 78th place on the world ranking of super-pricey property.

An investor would pay an astronomic $47 578/sq m for a residential unit in the principality of Monaco, according to Global Property Guide's latest list of highest-priced properties.

This is more than double the $20 853/sq m that a similar unit in Moscow would cost, and the $20 756/sq m for one in London.

These figures are based on the average price of a luxury 120sq m lodging in more than 110 cities across the globe. The price of an average unit in Monte Carlo would thus be $5.7m or so (about R55.2m).

For an apartment in Cape Town, the only South African city on the list, an investor would pay an average of $2 355/sq m, with the price of a 120sq m unit amounting to about R2.7m.

Pace Property Group managing director David Green says, however, that the exchange rate makes South African properties seem cheap.

"Compared to the rest of the world our property is underpriced, which offers potential for an upgrading of capital values," he says.

But he considers that the property market in Cape Town, with its large proportion of foreign homeowners, is currently under great pressure.

"Foreign investors in South Africa, who are being affected by the global economic crisis, are being forced to put their properties on the market, resulting in a surplus of properties in the mother city." He reckons it will take a considerable time to clear up the oversupply.

The three cheapest property markets on the list are Cairo in Egypt, Bangalore in India and Concepción in Chile, where property prices average $574/sq m, $657/sq m and $669/sq m respectively.

- Fin24.com