• If you were head of HR at a multinational corporation, trying to figure out where it would be cheapest to deploy your overseas minions, you’d expect your dollars to go a lot further in West Africa than in Tokyo, no? Apparently not, according to the latest worldwide cost of living survey from Mercer, the business consultancy, which awards top place for priciness to Luanda in Angola, ahead of cities more familiar with the lofty end of expensiveness indices such as Tokyo, (no 2), Moscow (4), Geneva (6), Zurich and Hong Kong (joint 8th). The top-ten inclusion of Ndjamena in Chad and Libreville in Gabon, at 3rd and 7th place respectively, also seems a bit surprising, until you realise that these listings are nothing to do with the cost of housing for actual inhabitants and all to do with the vast security measures required at the homes of expatriate employees of American oil and mining companies. In comparison, London is pretty cheap at no 17.
• Though perhaps not if you are an actual local, priced out of home-ownership and forced to rent a flat at the highest rates in Western Europe. According to research by a flatshare website, the average British tenant pays an average of £348 a month, at least £63 a month more than their counterparts in Spain, France and Italy. The study, by easyroommate.co.uk, found that British rents were on average 75 per cent higher than in Spain. Milan, however, pips London to the post of most expensive city, with average rates of £631 a month, compared to London’s £551. The average monthly rent in Valencia is a sunny £207.
• Those who are in the lucky position of being able to buy should consider street names when making their decision. A property website survey of road names found that houses on Hills and Lanes are worth 50 per cent more than the national average, much more than those on Streets and Terraces. The average value of a house on a Hill is £341,466, according to zoopla.co.uk, while addresses on a Lane cost an average of £328,378, and those on a Mews cost £294,869. However, the average home on a Street is worth a mere £155,515 and a Terraced house is only £156,387. Crescent, Court and View were also below the national average. Other nuggets of name-related facts: there are only 4,825 Mews’s in the UK, compared to 144,322 Roads, and properties on Church Lanes are worth more than double those on Chapel Streets.