London third most expensive city in world for property

London is the third most expensive place in the world in which to buy property, a study claimed today.

People buying an high-end apartment in the centre of the capital can expect to pay an average of $20,756 (£14,299) per square metre, according to property research group Global Property.

But a top-end apartment in Monte Carlo, the world's most expensive city, costs more than twice as much as one in London, at around $47,578 (£32,777) per square metre.

Property in Moscow, which came in second place, costs $20,853 (£14,366) per square metre, only slightly more than in London.

The group said one reason why Moscow came ahead of London was that property prices in London had been falling throughout 2008, while in Moscow they only started to fall during the last quarter of the year.

It added that both countries had also recently experienced strong currency declines, and this would have impacted on the research as the figures are reported in US dollars.

The research, which was based on the average price of a 120 square metre, high-end apartment in the centre of 110 cities around the world, found that Tokyo was the fourth most expensive city in which to buy property, followed by Hong Kong.

New York, Paris, Singapore, Rome and Mumbai made up the rest of the top 10 most expensive cities.

At the other end of the scale, Cairo was found to be the cheapest city in the world, with a high-end apartment there costing an average of only $574 (£395) per square metre, followed by Bangalore in India at $657 (£453) per square metre.

Prime apartments in Concepcion in Chile, Quito in Ecuador and Chengdu in China all also cost less than $1,000 (£689) per square metre.