Tel Aviv was ranked the world’s eighth most expensive city to buy residential real estate in an annual report on the cost of living in 69 of the world’s most important cities.

The average home in the Israeli metropolis costs $18,469 per square meter, according to Deutsche Bank’s Mapping the World’s Prices report released late last month, which determines the ranking based on the average cost of a home in a city’s center.

Hong Kong took the top spot with homes costing $25,946 per square meter. Israel was ranked behind New York ($18,532), London ($20,953), Geneva ($21,491), Seoul ($22,875), Singapore ($22,955), and Zurich ($23,938).

Israel’s high ranking was due to it “being the capital of a small, but densely populated, country with strict zoning rules and more recently, a booming tech sector.” The capital of Israel is Jerusalem, but many countries and foreign organizations do not recognize it as such due to the dispute with Palestinians over the status of the city.

Successive Israeli governments have for years promised to lower........

© The Times of Israel