_Wealth Report 2018: Sydney and Melbourne rank in top 20 in City Wealth Index

Using this new methodology, New York has emerged as the top city of the survey with a clean sweep of all four categories, knocking London, last year’s top city, into second place. North American cities made up 10 of the top 20, with Asian cities occupying five spots.

Sydney ranked 11th overall on the City Wealth Index, influenced by ranking seventh in the category ‘investment’ in property over the two years ending 2017. Melbourne came in at equal 20th with Madrid, also performing well in ‘investment’, sitting in 15th place for that category. When looking closer at the diversity of demand, measured by the number of different nationalities making investments, Sydney is 5th while Melbourne is equal 6th with Hong Kong and San Francisco.

Sydney and Melbourne also ranked well in the lifestyle sub-categories, in particular ‘spend per overnight visitor’. Melbourne topped this ranking with an average spend of US$1,925. This is followed by Dubai (US$1,917) and then Sydney (US$1,829). The other sub-categories that make up the lifestyle category are ‘the highest number of five-star hotels’ and ‘cities with the most top 100 universities.’

Source: Knight Frank Research, Wealth-X, New World Wealth, Sabre, Real Capital Analytics, Oxford Economics, Five Star Alliance, Mastercard, Michelin, Times Higher Education, 2Thinknow Innovation Cities Index 2016-2017; The Wealth Report 2018 (Pg 28)