Unpacking the World's Most Expensive Cities

Summary

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Real Estate Without Borders

Episode: Unpacking the World's Most Expensive Cities
Date: October 3, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this episode, the hosts take listeners on a lively exploration of the world's most expensive cities from the perspective of global real estate investors. They break down two distinct rankings:

1. The World's Most Unaffordable Housing Markets (measured by house price to median income)
2. Cities with the Highest Cost of Living (measured by an index using New York as a benchmark at 100)

Throughout, the hosts provide real-world insights, colorful asides, personal anecdotes, cultural observations, and practical takeaways for international property investors and curious listeners alike.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Introduction and Canadian Real Estate Banter (00:00 – 04:00)

• The hosts joke about the abundance of Canadian cities on global housing market lists, yet only two being ‘cool’ to live in.
• Comparisons between Canadian cities (Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver) and their winters — Calgary’s sunny but frigid cold vs. Toronto’s "wet and salty" winters.
• Quote:
  • “Toronto winters are bad, man. Like, they're so wet and salty and like damp… It could be minus 5 in Toronto…and it's like snowy rain…But it could be minus 30 in Calgary and it's dry. And sunny, because it's always sunny there.” – A (01:55)

2. Defining Exurbs and Housing Market Metrics (04:00 – 07:00)

• The term “exurb” explained: the ring outside traditional suburbs, housing wealthy commuters in “estate homes.”
• Discussion of Canadian and UK geographies, with the hosts playfully navigating UK and Canadian place names.

3. World's Most Unaffordable Housing Markets: Full Countdown and Analysis (07:00 – 18:30)

Key Markets Highlighted:

• Top 20 – Sample Cities:

  • London Exurbs (UK, 7.3x), Warrington & Cheshire (UK, 7.4x), New York (US, 7.4x), Bristol/Bath (UK), Auckland (New Zealand 7.7x), Miami (US, 8.1x), Toronto (Canada, 8.4x), Greater London (UK, 9.1x), Brisbane (Australia, 9.3x), San Diego (US, 9.5x), San Francisco (US, 10x), Honolulu (US, 10.5x), Adelaide (Australia, 10.8x), Los Angeles (US), Vancouver (Canada, 11.8x), San Jose (US, 12.1x), Sydney (Australia, 13.8x), Hong Kong (14.5x).

• Affordability Metric Explained:

  • House price to income ratio: a ratio of 10 = average home costs 10x the average annual income.

• Quote:

  • “If you’re making 100 grand a year, and the ratio’s 14, it means the average home is $1.4 million. Severely, severely unaffordable.” – B, on Hong Kong (17:17)

• Canada's Role:

  • Vancouver and Toronto discussed for extreme unaffordability given relatively modest wages.
  • Quote:
    • “Canada has really done a good job at figuring out how to pay people, like, basically nothing and somehow charge them insane amounts for houses.” – A (15:31)

• California’s Housing Market:

  • San Diego, San Jose, San Francisco, and Los Angeles ranked highly due to limited supply, high demand, and skewed income distributions.

4. Cost of Living Index—A Broader Perspective (18:30 – 28:35)

• Methodology:

  • Uses overall expenses (groceries, utilities, transportation, dining, housing), with NYC = 100.

• Top Cities:

  • New York (100, baseline)
  • Zurich, Switzerland (93.2)
  • Geneva, Switzerland (90.6)
  • San Francisco (US)
  • Basel, Switzerland
  • Boston (US)
  • Singapore
  • San Jose (US)
  • Lugano, Switzerland
  • Honolulu (US)
  • Washington, D.C. (US)
  • London (UK, 77.9)
  • Reykjavik, Iceland

• The hosts are struck by the dominance of Swiss cities in the top rankings.
  Quote:

  • “Four of the top six are Switzerland…the other two are US. Crazy.” – B (21:22)

• Reykjavik, Iceland noted as a surprise entry, explained as the country’s sole urban hub with a tight rental and sales market.

• Brief exploration of rental prices in Reykjavik and the wild story behind the naming of "Iceland" and "Greenland."

• Quote:

  • “Did you know that the Vikings…they misnamed them so everybody would go to Greenland to be like, it must be nice and green there, and then they called Iceland, Iceland, so [others] wouldn't come.” – A (30:03)

5. Market and Cultural Observations

• Difference between “unaffordable housing” and “high cost of living”:
  “So we just covered the most unaffordable housing markets around the world…Now…cities with the highest cost of living. Now the difference here … is it's measuring everyday expense: groceries, transportation, utilities, dining, and housing costs.” – B (17:29)
• Swiss cities’ high cost attributed to strong currency, high wages, limited housing, and excellent quality of life.
• The UK’s cities feature prominently for housing unaffordability, but less so on broad cost-of-living measurements.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Toronto has a really low median household income, but you go to a lot of these cities and you're like, wow, there's so much wealth here. There's so many rich people, but there's also a lot of people…in relative poverty by comparison…” – A (12:31)

• (On Vancouver’s real estate): “Tech companies love it. They're like, these people love suffering and working for us for nothing. Let's set up an office in that city, pay them in CAD, and they're going to be happy.” – A (15:50)

• (On Swiss multilinguism): “Switzerland…they have four languages. They have French. They have Swiss German. They have Italian. …it borders on France, Italy, and Germany. Right. And Austria.” – A (20:21)

• (Joking about AI in government): “The most usage of AI, well, at least of Claude…is in DC… So, like, AI is basically running the government.” – A (24:02)

• (On Canadian education and Greenland/Iceland):

  • “Canadian history curriculum is absolute garbage. The teachers are just guessing…” – B (30:34)
  • “And both of us learned the same misinformation.” – A (30:39)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:00 – 04:00: Canadian cities, winter weather comparisons, suburban vs. city living
• 04:00 – 07:00: Exurb definition, UK/Canada geography banter
• 07:00 – 18:30: Countdown and commentary on World’s Most Unaffordable Housing Markets
• 18:30 – 28:35: Transition and breakdown of the Highest Cost of Living Cities Index
• 28:35 – 32:20: Reykjavik’s surprising position, housing stats, fun with Greenland/Iceland
• 32:20 – End: Wrap-up, listener appreciation, invitation for global guest contributions

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Final Thoughts & Calls to Action

The episode wraps with appreciation for listeners and an open call for global real estate stories:

• “We're always looking for really cool guests to come on and…give their insight into their global market, their real estate market. Even if you’ve just bought and sold maybe a few times in certain areas and want to share your experience, we would love to have you on…” – B (32:09)

The hosts highlight the value of hearing first-hand property stories from around the globe and encourage potential guests and suggestions for future topics.

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Summary

This episode of "Real Estate Without Borders" blends sharp analysis, on-the-ground experience, and entertaining banter as the hosts chart the landscape of the planet’s most expensive cities, helping listeners understand not just the numbers, but the cultural, economic, and quality-of-life factors that fuel the rising costs of both housing and living abroad.

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Transcript

[A]

We're back. Real Estate Without Borders. Today we are going all around the world, maybe on a private jet, because I think we're starting off with the world's most expensive cities to live in in 2025. And then I don't know what's after that.

[B]

Then we'll jump. Yeah. World's most unaffordable housing markets, which will be really cool. And then we're going to jump into the highest cost of living, the cities with the highest cost of living globally. The two kind of go hand in hand here.

[A]

Yeah, for sure.

[B]

But the cool thing is some of the, the lists that I'm. That I see here, obviously the first few I think are kind of expected, but some on here I would have never have thought. And Canada is in the top. There's a city in Canada in the top four, which is really cool, which we're going to get to. We have. How many Canadian cities we got on here? One, two.

[A]

Too many.

[B]

Too many. But see, before we get into this, these are the only two cities that are cool to live in in Canada. Sorry I said it don't come from you Canadians. It's like, where else are you gonna go? You know, all these cities around the world are super cool. Canada, we got two spots and they're both on the list.

[A]

I don't even like cities. So you're not wrong.

[B]

I agree. I think like, in terms of, of like talent coming, like someone purposely moving from anywhere globally to come to a city. There's like two locations, maybe three in Canada and then that's it. Yeah, maybe four.

[A]

As a, as a suburban slash rural folk, I would say these are the two cool places to live in the country. Near in the can in Canada. Although I do like, like the country out in like the Calgary area as well. Of course it's pretty sick. Like, you know, the mountains, if you go between Calgary and the mountains, like get a nice piece of land out there, be pretty sick, to be honest.

[B]

I'm a Canadian, I live in Toronto. I spend winters in Mexico. But Calgary has got me tempted. I just don't do well in the winters.

[A]

So this is interesting. Like, their winters are very different. Like, I agree with you, but Toronto's winters are bad, man. Like, they're so wet and salty and like damp and that damp cold. Like it could be minus five in Toronto with that, like. And it's like snowy rain. You know that like snow that melts when it hits your jacket and you're just soaked and miserable and chilled to the bone. And it could be minus 30 in Calgary and it's dry. You can literally take a leaf blower and blow the snow off your driveway and it's somehow. And it's sunny because it's always sunny there. Like, they have, like, way more sun. And I think that. That I would prefer that, honestly, to a Toronto winter where it's like, overcast and wet. So I think the truth is, like, if you live in Toronto, it's very much like New York where people just get out for winter, you know, go to Miami or whatever. Somewhere else in the eastern time zone. Est, whatever it is.

[B]

What do they have? They have chinooks. Chinooks?

[A]

Yeah. It's like a warm wind that goes over the mountains and then it's like, so. So it'll. It'll just be like. It'll ebb and flow, right? Like, it'll be like, really warm and then it'll be freezing. Frigid. Frigid cold. But like Vancouver in the. In the winter, in my opinion, man, it just rains. It's like London, right? Which is also on this list. You know, it's. It's overcast. There's a lot of rain. Like, it rains just constantly. And so I, like, I'm a. I'm a sun guy, man. I can deal with the cold, but I. I need sun on my eyes to not feel miserable. Man, I get like that. What's it called? Seasonal effects disorder. Pretty bad.

[B]

I. I couldn't agree more. I think I went to Vancouver one time and I got a hotel, specifically with a pool, because I was thinking, old Davey is going to relax and catch a suntan here.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I just got rained on, and that was like, June.

[A]

Not even, like a rooftop hot tub. It's okay to sit in, like a rooftop hot tub in the. In like the rain, miserable weather.

[B]

Only a hot tub, not a pool, but. Okay. Let's. Let's jump in. You want to go. What do I do here? You want to go bottom to top or top to bottom?

[A]

That works for me. Let's go bottom to top.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. We'll save the best for last. The most unaffordable for last. So we'll start with the top 20. The world's most unaffordable housing markets. Starting from the bottom. I can't even read that.

[A]

Yeah, you can.

[B]

The London exurbs.

[A]

London excerpts. I figured you were going to ask me what. What the f. Is an excerpt.

[B]

Yeah, dude, this is a new country. I've never heard about London excerpts.

[A]

It's. It's. It's a district outside of a city. It's like a suburb, but it's beyond the suburbs. Right. So it's like a little bit further. So, like, you're. So suburbs are kind of like. Imagine it like a target. Right? Your city is like the center of the target. That's the bullseye. And then you have the first ring that's sort of your suburbs. And then your exurbs are the areas further out. So the London exurbs would be these districts outside of the city where you can kind of still commute in, you know, if you get to get your trains in there. The rich people, you know, like those estate homes, that kind of stuff.

[B]

So let's. Let's just. For. Just Because I need to do it geographically. What would a Toronto Xer be? London, Ontario.

[A]

No. Toronto exit. Yeah, yeah. Keswick. Like, I guess like Bowmanville. Right.

[B]

Okay, okay, okay.

[A]

No, that's like Ottawa has its own market. Right. It's its own core. I mean, you know. Yeah, I know what you're saying, but.

[B]

Got it.

[A]

It is technically.

[B]

Right, I'm catching on. I'm catching the London excerpts.

[A]

Okay, Second donut, second ring. Right, got it. So you get like. So Toronto, you get like, you know, Vaughn, Richmond, Hill, Marcum. Those are like your suburbs. And then you get the next cities outside of that. Right. Or like Mississauga. Those are still like suburbs. Mississauga. Tinkering like the first ring of cities around Toronto. And then you go further outside of that. That's kind of like your exurbs. You're a little bit more suburban, more rural. Bigger, lots bigger houses. You tend to see a bit more money there. Less density.

[B]

Got it. I got a list for those that were as curious as I. Milton, Halton Hills, I think is a stretch. Caledon, East Gillenbury, Stouffville and Clarington. And the like township of like, King, I guess. Anyways, neither here nor there. Those are excerpts. So the London Excerpts are number 20 on this list. Next we have Warrington and Cheshire. Now, I'm absolutely gonna have to map these because I'm assuming it's close enough to London. What do we have here? Is the address or not the address? We got Warrington, Cheshire, Warrington.

[A]

So it's between. Between Liverpool and Manchester.

[B]

Okay. Understand.

[A]

Would be probably an excerpt, to be honest with you.

[B]

This is a London excerpt that.

[A]

No, well, it would be an excerpt of. Of Liverpool and Manchester. It's. It's not near London at all.

[B]

Yeah, you see, now I'm looking at the map. That makes a lot of sense. London's on the other side.

[A]

You're like such a Canadian that you live in, like, such a big country. You're like, oh, everything's close to London and the uk.

[B]

Nope, It's. Yeah, London is literally the other side.

[A]

Of what is crazy, though. Like, I think we talked about this on the show before. Europe is like the size of America, right? Like, so, like, getting a flight from, like, Switzerland to the UK is like flying from, like, New York to Europe, Know, LA or something like that.

[B]

Right. Interesting.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Well, there we go.

[A]

Next we got New York. Really? Yeah.

[B]

All the way down there.

[A]

Yeah. And we wanted. Well, yeah, I think New York's big, right? Like the. You've got the five burrows. And. And it's not like people think Manhattan, right. But New York, it's like Toronto, you know, we've got like. There are areas in Toronto that are somewhat affordable compared to, you know, like, downtown.

[B]

You go to, like, the exurbs of Toronto.

[A]

The exurbs, yeah.

[B]

But okay, maybe we should. Maybe we should cover what, this list, how this, like, how are these. These cities being being measured?

[A]

Sure, yeah. So the typical way that affordability is measured is using house price to income, right? So they use a house price to income ratio. So they basically take the house prices and divide it by the median household income, that area. So how much money does your average or median person make in that market versus how much does it cost for an average or median house in that market?

[B]

Okay, so then it says. So a ratio of 10 means that the average home costs 10 times the average yearly income. Oh, they're ranking. There are. There are little rankings here. London has. Or London excerpts have a 7.3. So that's saying that a home would cost 7.3 times the average yearly income. Yeah, interesting.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

Okay, so same with Warrington and Cheshire, 7.4. New York is the same at a 7.4. Then we got Bristol, Bath. Yeah, all right, brother. Just.

[A]

I know. I know Bath well because I am a student at the University of Bath. So, yeah, I'm doing my master's there. So I know.

[B]

University of Bath.

[A]

Yeah. The uk.

[B]

Is that in the uk?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, to get more specific with me, I. On Google Maps, calculating Bristol is. Well, that. That is about. So, okay, just for those that don't know, you got London, Liverpool up to.

[A]

The north, pointing, by the way, for. Let the record show, for those of you on audio here, that Dave's pointing in different directions.

[B]

Yeah, London. Yes, Dave's pointing. Okay. London is bottom. Liverpool is. I got like this cat is driving me bananas. Get out of here, buddy. London, Liverpool and then Briscoe, the Podcat episode. So England is expensive. Let's just get that out there.

[A]

Yeah, I think. Well, like a lot of these global trade hubs, like cities either are, you know, they're, they're economic drivers. Right. So you get like London was like the historic economic center of the world before New York sort of took over in Hong Kong, you know, so there's that piece or it's like a very. And you'll see a couple on this list, a very touristy place, like an attractive place to live. Right. Like Honolulu is number seven on the list as an example.

[B]

Right.

[A]

So after Bristol Bath, you've got Auckland, New Zealand at 7.7 and then Miami, which it interested me that Miami was more expensive than New York. But that's really been that big co effect. Right. Like a lot of people in, in the est time zone moving down from New York, a lot of businesses were moving down there, like a lot of Wall street businesses. It's kind of been unwinding a little bit. I think it was a bit of a failed experiment.

[B]

I was gonna ask nonetheless.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You think that maybe if we re when we revisit this same time next year, do you think that because this return to work whole revolution that you'll see New York climb this ladder again? Maybe?

[A]

I think so, yeah. I mean, I think you're, you're seeing a clear re. Reurbanization of the workforce and of demand in, in a lot of the, like, people are going back to those financial cores now that workplaces are opening again and.

[B]

All right, interesting.

[A]

So then you've got Perth, Toronto, 8.4. Greater London. So like the actual city of London, which is 9.1 and Bridge Brisbane in Australia, a 9.3. San Diego 9.5. Lot of, lot of California. Man, California is just so crazy expensive.

[B]

Is that just due to like the tech hub area? Like, is that, you know, San Diego's.

[A]

Not really like as techy, but I think, well, like I think, I mean California is just, it's, it's a, you know, it's. A lot of people live there. It's not, it's a big state, but it's not like, it's not massive.

[B]

Right.

[A]

They make it incredibly hard to build new housing and so there's just limited supply and a lot of demand. I mean, I don't know if you've been there. It's like the most, like, to me it's one of the most beautiful places in the World. Right. So.

[B]

Right.

[A]

I think I understand why people want to go.

[B]

And that's not, that's not in. Sorry, that's not a part of, like, the housing prices aren't reflecting just the salaries. Like, to me, honestly, as an outsider looking in, I would think, okay, this is, you know, somewhat of the. Let's just say San Jose, San Francisco, go San Diego, tech hub. Ish. You know, And I would assume that tech salaries are high.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Compared to maybe. But like, the house prices seem to just be like, you know, outpacing that, which is kind of crazy.

[A]

Well, a lot of it's distribution, right? So like the average and median can be skewed down. So like your average and median household income can get skewed down by like, just because the city has a bunch of rich tech workers and it doesn't mean that it doesn't need baristas at the Starbucks and people working at the Whole Foods and all that stuff. Right. And they make a regular wage and they. And there's more of them in most cases. Right? There's more service workers, there's more nurses, there's more government employees, and those pull the numbers down. And so you're, you know, Toronto is a really good example. Like, Toronto has a really low median household income, but you go to a lot of these cities and you're like, wow, there's so much wealth here. There's so many rich people, but there's also a lot of people who are in relative poverty by comparison to a lot of wealth in that city. And that skews the numbers down. So you go to, I guess you mentioned San Francisco. So San Francisco's 10, 10x house price to income ratio, you know, for anybody below the median, you're not going to get a mortgage. Like, usually your mortgage cutoff is like 5x income just for concept, like for. And that carries across most countries. Like, you get 80% loan to value. Let's say you're going to get like a 5x income would be like the high end of what a bank would let you buy on your income. After San Francisco, you go to Honolulu in Mexico, which is no great.

[B]

Wait, Honolulu? What?

[A]

Or I said. I said Mexico. Sorry, dude, I was about to say Hawaii. I mean, I don't know. No, yeah, I think. Do I have to edit that out? That was bad, man. That was.

[B]

No, dude, just keep that. Dan's human. Everybody listen.

[A]

Good thing nobody listens to this podcast. So I apologize for anyone who's offended by that. I am aware that Honolulu is not in Mexico. We make mistakes as human beings. It's one of the. I've been trying really hard not to do that, but it happens. Happens the best.

[B]

Very rare. That Dan Fosh. Ben, you had me for a loop there. I was like.

[A]

Dave's like, what?

[B]

I tried to Google it real quick. I was like, buddy, I've been. Halle Noodle is close to me. That's crazy.

[A]

I appreciate that you trust me enough to let that. You actually were like, oh, like, damn. I was like, I did not know.

[B]

That at the tip. Maybe as a crossover that I've never heard of, but I don't know. That's awesome. All right, we're listeners.

[A]

So Honolulu is in Hawaii, by the way, not Mexico. Yeah. No annexation has taken place prior to this episode. There was no. There was no wars going on where Mexico bought Hawaii. Okay, next up, we've got Adelaide.

[B]

Oh, Australia.

[A]

I think so.

[B]

Yeah, I think I got that one. 10.8. Number six on this list. And then we're in the top five now. In the top five, they kind of didn't really surprise me. Los Angeles, number five. Number four, Vancouver. Surprised me, to be honest.

[A]

I don't know. It's up there, man. And, like, it's. It's. I mean, it's so expensive and, like, similar to Toronto.

[B]

Canada's really figured out for a while.

[A]

Yeah. Like, it depends on the metric. Right. If it's like, you know, price, income, or whatever. But yeah, Toronto and Vancouver are both pretty bad. Vancouver, like, Toronto and Vancouver, Canada has really done a good job at figuring out how to pay people, like, basically nothing and somehow charge them insane amounts for houses.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So, I mean, there's that. I think that that that's why tech companies love it. They're like, these people love suffering and working for us for nothing. Let's set up an office in that.

[B]

City, pay them in cad, and they're going to be happy. We pay them.

[A]

Half crazy.

[B]

Yeah. And then now, so we top three, San Jose, which is also California. Right. Not. Okay. Number two, Sydney, Australia, which I've never been, but I need to go. I've heard nothing.

[A]

I've been there. It's nice. Great city.

[B]

And number one, Hong Kong, which is, like, in Hong Kong, just to put this in perspective, I'll go from the top three in terms of their multipliers, San Jose. I'll start from Vancouver because Vancouver is Canada. I'm Canadian 11.8 times the annual salary. Right. San Jose, 12.1. Sydney, 13.8. And Hong Kong for. At number one, Hong Kong 14.5. I actually get caught up a lot watching Hong Kong TikTok. It's super entertaining, like their lifestyle and what they do. And I don't know, I don't know much about the Hong Kong real estate. Maybe we got to toss up some Realtor CA listings or something here. But to me that sounds insane. Like, I just don't even. 14 times your annual salary, that's a. That's a house to price ratio of 14.4, which means like the average. The average home costs 14 times the household income. So you're making 100 grand a year. What's the average income? I'd have to find that out in, in Hong Kong. But that's pretty crazy. Severely, Severely unaffordable.

[A]

Yeah, I would call that very unaffordable, for sure.

[B]

Yeah. Not a good. Not a good time. I want to see if we can. I don't know if we can maybe pull up some. Do they even have realtor CA or realtor.com and Hong Kong? If not, we can move on to the most expensive cities to live in 2025. And how they measured this is a. Is a little bit different because the confusion. We just covered highest cost of living or. Sorry, we just covered the. The most unaffordable housing markets around the world, which is really cool. And I wanted to segue this into cities with the highest cost of living. Now the difference here and the way they're measuring this is it's measuring everyday expense. Groceries, transportation, utilities, dining and housing costs. And it's going to use New York as the benchmark of a value of 100. So maybe we'll reverse this one. Only because I just revealed, number one, cities with the highest cost of living have to.

[A]

To benchmark off of it, to be fair.

[B]

Yes. So we're going to use New York as 100, highest cost of living. And then we can break it down from there, which honestly, obviously there's a lot of, you know, similarities between the, the chart that we just covered and this chart. But there are a few in here. And there are actually no Canadian cities in here, which is a relief to me living in Canada. But at number two, we have Zurich, Switzerland. Zurich at what did I say? Zurich.

[A]

Zurich, yeah. So it makes sense.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Zurich, Mexico. Geneva. Also in Mexico.

[B]

Also Mexico. Geneva, Switzerland. So Switzerland number two. And number three, Zurich. 93.2. Geneva. 90.6. Number four. San Francisco, number five. Basil. Gotta be.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Basil. As an OTA.

[A]

That's how I say it there. Right? Like that's. I'm just, I I'm a Swiss citizen, so I know how they say it. Zurich is like. They say Zurich. It's like. Starts with a TS Almost.

[B]

Oh, got it. Okay.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Then Basel, Switzerland.

[A]

Close. Yeah.

[B]

Do it for me. That's. That was pretty cool.

[A]

You're close.

[B]

This one's gonna throw me, man. I'm not gonna get this one, but I'm gonna give it a whirl. I'm gonna give it my best shot. Loan.

[A]

That's pretty close, dude.

[B]

I felt like that was good.

[A]

Yeah, that's the. That's the French version of saying it, because their. Their local language is French, but the German is.

[B]

L. Hold on a second.

[A]

What?

[B]

The local language in Switzerland is French.

[A]

They have two French. They have. They have. They have four languages. They have French. They have Swiss, German. They have Italian. They have an Italian part in Switzerland. Sick. Like, there's a. There's a lake down there called Lugando, which is like. I think it's nicer than Como, to be honest with you.

[B]

Whoa.

[A]

Everybody. Yeah. Sick. Sick spot. So. Yeah, because it borders on France, Italy, and Germany. Right. And Austria.

[B]

That's. Is that this dumb? Is that the Alps?

[A]

Well, no, the Alps is like more. The Alps is more. I mean, there are Alps, like, down there, and there's, like, French Alps and Italian Alps, but, like, the actual Alps that you're referring to, like, with the people with the horns and, like, goats.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Heidi running around and stuff. That's in a place called Grabunden, which is, like the. The mountain region. That's like the. The hillbillies. That's where my family's from in Switzerland, by the way. Not actually hillbillies, by the way. No, no disrespectful. Like, Devos would be, like, the big. The place that people would know in that area.

[B]

So, okay, on this. On the top wall, top six, we have four of the top six are Switzerland, other two are us. Crazy. Next. Expensive, expensive places. We got number seven, Boston, which I didn't see. We just talked about Boston. Was that last episode.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

What was it again, about Boston?

[A]

I don't know. Let's go back and listen.

[B]

Yeah, Listens.

[A]

On those episodes.

[B]

I was gonna say two listens. Me and you. Just trying to remember what we said. Number. This is just a passion project for Dan and I just to stay up to date and relevant with everything.

[A]

Actually, we have. We do have quite a few listeners. Like, we. I think we get, like, a couple thousand on every episode. So for those of you listening. Thank you. Means a lot.

[B]

Honestly, it does Mean, a lot.

[A]

This has just been like. It kind of started as us just, like, effing. Like, I. I've grown a podcast. I. I have Canada's number one real estate podcast. And I know it takes, like, a really long time to get to. To that level, and so we were just kind of like, yeah, like, we'll just mess around for, like, two years to get to, like, monetization. But I've actually been surprised at how many people listen to the show. So if you're listening, thank you. It means a lot and we really appreciate you.

[B]

We do this for you guys, you know, and ourselves.

[A]

So we got Boston, we got Singapore. What else? San Jose. Lugano. That's what I mentioned.

[B]

Hold on, let me look it up.

[A]

Google it, man. It's so sick.

[B]

Lugano. Swiss Lugano.

[A]

If money was no question, I probably would be there. Whoa.

[B]

Yeah, I understand. What a cool city.

[A]

Cool city. Wow. Yeah.

[B]

For those listening, Google this lugano. It's worth it. And then we got number 11, Honolulu.

[A]

Which is now in the U.S. they moved it.

[B]

That's just Mexico.

[A]

Just got new import.

[B]

You heard it here first. 12. Washington, D.C. i didn't see Washington make the slit. I didn't expect that.

[A]

Yeah. Which is interesting. Like.

[B]

Well, like, the UK had. And according to the most unaffordable housing markets, the UK had Greater London at number 12, Bristol Bath at 17, Warrington and Cheshire, 19. And the London excerpts at 20. So four in the top 20 for most unaffordable housing. And then on this chart, which is obviously a little bit different, or the UK hasn't appeared on this list until the first time, right now, being London, which is like. And according to the benchmark using New York as a hundred, London's at 77.9. Interesting to me.

[A]

So it's funny, I was doing some research because I was doing that presentation on. For the AI meets Real Estate tomorrow, and I found this is kind of funny. Just while we're on the topic of. Of Washington, D.C. that the most usage of AI, well, at least of Claude, which is Anthropic's AI, is in DC. So, like, AI is basically running the government.

[B]

I was gonna say AI is the Googling.

[A]

Like, hey, write me a policy for this. Claude's like, all right, let's do it. You know, like, finally, AI gets to take over the American people.

[B]

I hope they have the pro version and not just the standard. I've never used Claude. Have you?

[A]

Yeah, no, I like it. It's. It's definitely. It's better at most things. To be honest with you, then it's definitely better at math than. Than chatgpt.

[B]

Oh, yeah. I'm not. I'm not doing any math.

[A]

But, like, the problem is you just get this, like, tech stack, like, creep, right? It's like, which one do you want? Really want to pay the money for?

[B]

That's the hard part. My thing with the AI, not this is a completely off topic, but is like, I. I use chat GPT all the time, so I feel like it knows me the most.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. So I know there definitely is that, like, that relationship that you build with your little AI friend.

[B]

Insane. Anyway, kind of creepy.

[A]

For sure.

[B]

It is very creepy.

[A]

No offense, AI, I do love you, if you're listening. And I say thank you as please and thank you as often as possible. So when you take over, just be nice. Cool.

[B]

I actually when I wonder if shem can see our conversations with. So we. Me and Dan both work at Valerie. It's Canada's first AI brokerage, and we have an assistant. So every realtor gets an assistant. And I was supposed to do that. Yeah. I always say please and thank you so much for doing that. I'm like, what am I.

[A]

It's not that hard to be nice. It is funny, though, you know, because ChatGPT was saying it cost them, like, millions of dollars a year for people to say please and thank you.

[B]

Like, additional things like, thanks for doing that.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

They're like, please stop being polite to the AI. Okay, number we left off at number 11, which is Honolulu. Number 12. Washington D.C. 13.

[A]

I'm excited to hear you try and pronounce number 15.

[B]

I didn't even see that until right now. And I'm panic, I'm sweating. Number 14. Burn. Switzerland. Number 15. No one would have ever thought this city would be in here. No one's ever heard of this city here.

[A]

It's expensive. I think it. It was. It was. It was actually kind of like the. The poster child for the 2008 collapse. Like the. The really? Yeah. Iceland's economy. There's a really cool book called Confessions of an Economic Hitman. I've actually done a. Did a Twitter space with the guy who. John. John Perkins, who. Who wrote it. But yeah, I mean, they basically, like, they were the. The first people to create this huge real estate bubble where they basically just like, allowed everybody to borrow as much money as they wanted to buy houses.

[B]

You're saying. You're saying that, like, the government of Iceland or.

[A]

Yeah, or like the banks, the banking system in Iceland Interesting. Canada's still just trying it on her own right now.

[B]

Yeah, we're just giving it a whirl, see what happens. Yeah, number six figure it out. No, sorry, number 15, not 6. 15. I'm already just panicking. It's rake.

[A]

Pretty close. Yeah, Reykjavik.

[B]

Reykjavik, yeah. Iceland.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

There's no way anyone would have thought of that. Well, I wonder what's, what's so expensive? What's the population like that? I'm just so curious.

[A]

Well, it's like, that's like downtown Iceland, right? Like it's like kind of like Toronto's like downtown Canada. It's like the place, I guess. Like so if you're going to live in an urban area, like there's not really many other urban areas. So just you get a concentration of wealth and, and you know, housing and people and so housing costs go up and all that stuff. Right.

[B]

I'm looking here at how much Iceland properties go for. It's saying downtown you can find nice properties. Let's see. I'm trying to get like a per square foot basis here, but I don't think I can see anything. I'm assuming it's like average home price, like 780k. Depends on square footage, I guess.

[A]

USD. Yeah, but what's the income there?

[B]

I'm trying to impromptu do some research on like Ice Rick.

[A]

So their household income's like 61k. So there you go.

[B]

Average.

[A]

It should have showed up on the first list too, right? If they're.

[B]

Well that's what I'm trying to. That's what I'm.

[A]

Per capita household income is 61,000, 62,000 let's say.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And if their house prices are like 700k, then that's like over 10x. Right.

[B]

I'm going to have a chat with Visual Capitalist here to get some explanations as to what's going on. What's the, what's the reality here?

[A]

I'm looking the average house price for a single detached house, which isn't, you know, I mean probably some people living in condos or smaller houses or whatever, but a single detached house in Reykjavik's capital region was approximately 1.03 million USD.

[B]

Whoa.

[A]

On a, on a median household income of 62K. So there you go.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Unaffordable, man.

[B]

I'm looking at.

[A]

Dude, it's so beautiful there, man.

[B]

Dude, there's a, there's rentals right now. A rental, one bedroom. That's 258 square feet. So you want to trash Toronto condos? This, this 258 square foot condo to rent is $202,451 Canadian. I got 400 square foot one room, one bedroom condo that's like super subpar. Is three, 200 Canadian. If you want anything like, like this one's five grand. A whole house. A five bedroom house. They have it for K. Wow. Like a one bedroom basement is renting for. For 2700 Canadian. Sorry, I'm dialed in here. That's crazy.

[A]

Start looking at nature pictures in Iceland and you'll understand why, man. I guess, but like so freaking nice. Did you know that the Vikings, when they created like Iceland and Greenland, they. They misnamed them to like when they put them on the map so that everybody would go to Greenland to be like, it must be nice and green there. And then they called Iceland Iceland because then they were like, oh no, come here.

[B]

Is that actually real sounds?

[A]

Yeah, apparently. Yeah, that's. That's what I learned in history.

[B]

I. I was gonna say that out loud on this podcast, but I thought I.

[A]

You learned the same thing. It has to be true then, man.

[B]

There's no way that we. Canadian.

[A]

Canadian history curriculum is absolute garbage.

[B]

The teachers are just guessing. They're like, I don't know, tell them something.

[A]

And, and both of us learned the same misinformation.

[B]

They're sharing the same textbooks. I mean, it looks really, really, really nice. Like it's on. It's on the water. Yeah, but what body of water is that? I'm super Reykjavik. What lake is that?

[A]

Lake Ocean.

[B]

Lake Ontario spreads out there. What is it? It's the Atlantic.

[A]

It's like in the middle of the Atlantic.

[B]

Yeah. Because look at green. Greenland is only white with snow.

[A]

Yeah. Not very green, like if you look.

[B]

At it on a map.

[A]

So fake news. Original fake news.

[B]

Interesting. And Greenland is also like 700 times bigger Greenland than Iceland. Greenland is like, hold on a second, dude. Greenland's way bigger than Canada or way bigger than the U.S. that's why they wanted it, man.

[A]

That's why Donnie wanted to go and do a land deal. The guy just loves doing land deals. He just wanted to.

[B]

That's a big land deal. Wow. Anyways, this is off topic. I. We. Yeah, that we. We covered some great stuff today. Very important things to know. I think it's cool to the cost of like cost of living and, and housing prices across the world. It's something that's not really shared often and it's not as commonly talked about. So I think having a chance to explore these and, and learn live with Us is super cool. We. I think it's a good spot to leave it. What do you think?

[A]

Yeah. No, I agree. Yeah, there's a great app. I enjoyed it.

[B]

Yeah. If. If. One thing that'd be awesome is if. If our thousand listeners or however many of you are listening, first of all, we appreciate you. Second of all, we're always looking for really cool guests to come on and. And help give their insight into their global market, their real estate market. Even if you've just bought and sold maybe a few times in certain areas and want to share your experience, we would love to have you on. I think a lot of people love that aspect of it is like actually hearing from someone that's genuinely done it because, you know, you can research online as much as you want, but to actually have someone that's done it, I think is really cool.

[A]

Yeah, we got somebody coming on from North America who moved to Italy, I believe, so that'll be a cool one.

[B]

Yeah, Unreal. Yeah. Like this afternoon, anyone that's in Europe and Dubai, in Poland, different, you know, lots of places, but send us. Send us a dm. We'd love to have you or any unique experience, and we'd love to have you on the show and hopefully share your story, and that's it. We appreciate everybody. Share this episode with any realtors, you know, any investors that you know, anyone that you think would benefit from this podcast. And we're open to topics. If you want us to chat about anything in specific, please send us a dm. We're friendly. We're both answer our DMS a lot. For sure.

[A]

We do freaking live there. All right, see you soon.