Melbourne loses crown as world’s most liveable city

Vienna has ended Melbourne’s seven-year reign as the world’s most liveable city, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit. Cities in Australia and Canada took six of the top 10 spots, with the U.S. again missing out.

The latest ranking ends Melbourne’s record seven consecutive years at the head of the survey, with the Austrian capital inching out Melbourne by just 0.7 of a percentage point.  Meanwhile, Sydney placed 5th while Adelaide ranked 10th.

According to the latest data from CoreLogic, the median house price value in the Victorian Capital stood at $716,774 in June, 1% higher than a year before, and  the second highest in the country next to Sydney’s $870,554.

Melbourne’ rise comes despite tighter lending conditions and less investment activity driving weaker market conditions across the country.

Melbourne is also Australia’s largest property auction market. Preliminary CoreLogic data shows a 61.3% clearance rate recorded across 718 auctions this week.

Sydney and Melbourne have also driven a rise in national re-sale profits to $14.82bn during the first quarter this year, as nine in 10 individual residential properties re-sold attracted a gross profit.

Major global financial centres such as London (48th) and New York (57th) suffer from their own success, according to the EIU, with overstretched public transport, higher levels of crime and congestion denting their appeal. Hong Kong (35th) just edged out its local rival Singapore (37th) on the index after improving on stability scores.

Elsewhere in Asia, Osaka (3rd) and Tokyo (7th) both climbed the rankings to their highest position in more than a decade on consistent declines in crime rates and improvements in public transport. Most of the best-performing spots are mid-sized cities in wealthier countries with relatively low population density.

Honolulu is the topped ranked US city in 23rd place. At the bottom end of the table of 140 cities, the lowest-scoring is war-torn Damascus. Those suffering from inadequate infrastructure such as Harare, or in the case of Dhaka, severe pollution, also fare badly.

With a report from Bloomberg

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