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A new study has revealed that London is the third most expensive place in the world in which to buy property.
Data gathered by property research group Global Property show that people buying an high-end apartment in the centre of the capital can expect to pay an average of £14,299 per square metre.
But in Monte Carlo, the world's most expensive city, a top-end apartment costs more than twice as much as one in London, at around £32,777 per square metre. In second place was Moscow, where an equivalent property costs £14,366 per square metre.
One reason why Moscow came ahead of London, according to the group, 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.
Strong currency declines experienced recently by both countries would also have impacted on the research, as the figures are reported in US dollars, it added.
The research looked at the average price of a 120-square-metre, high-end apartment in the centre of 110 cities around the world. It found that Tokyo was the fourth most expensive city in which to buy property, followed by Hong Kong. The rest of the top 10 most expensive cities were New York, Paris, Singapore, Rome and Mumbai.
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 £395 per square metre, followed by Bangalore in India at £453 per square metre.
Other cities where prime apartments cost less than £700 per square metre included Concepcion in Chile, Quito in Ecuador and Chengdu in China.
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