Accra is More Expensive Than London, Dubai, New York, Berlin

Serbian-based data crowd-sourced data collection company, Numbeo has placed Ghana’s Capital Accra, as the most expensive city in the world, coming in second after war-torn Damascus-Syria.

The analysis by Numbeo shows that Accra has the most outrageous rent-to-income ratio in the world, at over 68% of the average income of residents.

While playing second fiddle to Damascus as the city with the highest rent, Accra beat the Syrian capital to become the world’s most expensive mortgage market with the average mortgage at 1822% of income, compared to Damascus which clocked 1051%.

This is because, at an average net income of GHC 2,200, residents of Accra cough up a whopping 26% in interest on their mortgage annually for 20 years. In Damascus, the annual interest on a mortgage is less than half of Ghana’s at 11% annually.

While Ghanaians are fleeced interest of over 26% on mortgage annually, countries in Europe, the Americas and Asia are charging interests not exceeding an average of 3% annually for the same 20-year maturity of the mortgage.

According to the database, a mortgage as a percentage of income is a ratio of the actual monthly cost of the mortgage to take-home family income.

“Average monthly salary is used to estimate family income. It assumes 100% mortgage is taken on 20 years for the house (or apt) of 90 square meters which price per square meter is the average price in the city centre and outside of city centre,” the site explained.

Numbeo was launched in 2009 by a former Google employee and data from the website has been credible enough to be cited by several reputable media organisations like the BBC, Time, Forbes, The Economist, Business Insider, etc.