When sorting by Rent Index, the US looks like a massive outlier at
45. Everywhere else over 40 is either a tiny island nation/territory or famously idiosyncratic (Switzerland, Iceland, UAE). The other Anglosphere giants, Canada and Australia, come in very high as well at 36.
I would have expected the most desirable Western European nations to lead, but most of those are in the 20's. Those nations tend to have more regulation and much less space to develop, yet they've managed to keep their rents meaningfully lower despite having a comparable cost of living overall.
> Rent Index: This index estimates the prices of renting apartments in a city compared to New York City. If the Rent Index is 80, it suggests that the average rental prices in that city are approximately 20% lower than those in New York City.
I think just by country messes up some of the measures for some countries and cities. I paid half of £720 to rent a former family home in Nottingham while a friend paid over £1000 in Nottingham.
Not my experience but I think Amsterdam also has extremely high rents but I'm not sure how it compares to the rest of the Netherlands.
The Netherlands has a segmented rental market. The social/rent controlled sector has a price ceiling of €880/month and is only accessible with annual income below €48k/€53k (single/multi-person household). These norms apply nation wide, but as demand / free market prices in the large cities like Amsterdam is much higher than elsewhere in the country, waiting times for social rent there is around 15 years (vs maybe 3 to 5 outside the big cities). Free market rents (anything over €880/month) in Amsterdam is probably around €1500 for a 1br or €2500-€3500 for a 3br. Around 3/4 of the total rental housing stock is social/rent-controlled units. It can be pretty nice if you manage to get one, but it's almost inaccessible to newcomers/outsiders due to the income caps and waiting times. Which is pretty much the expected outcome for price control affordability policies.
I'm surprised by how much the US has changed. I used to find it one of the cheapest places in the developed world and if you set the date thing on the map to 2014 it shows it like that. I'm not quite sure why it's changed. My guess would be investment flows into the big tech stocks like Apple, MSFT and Nvidia have pushed the currency up. Also oil - the US used to import a lot and is now the world's largest producer.
I would have expected the most desirable Western European nations to lead, but most of those are in the 20's. Those nations tend to have more regulation and much less space to develop, yet they've managed to keep their rents meaningfully lower despite having a comparable cost of living overall.
> Rent Index: This index estimates the prices of renting apartments in a city compared to New York City. If the Rent Index is 80, it suggests that the average rental prices in that city are approximately 20% lower than those in New York City.