Housing prices are through the roof in these 10 cities

SINGAPORE (Oct 4): Oh Canada! The first two words of that country’s national anthem are also what many people in Toronto and Vancouver must be saying when they pay their rent or mortgage.

Toronto’s costs posted the biggest jump from a year ago in the annual Bloomberg Global City Housing Cost Index, which analyses more than 100 municipalities worldwide. Canada’s financial hub surged 18 places to rank 28th globally in the survey, while Vancouver had the second-largest leap: 16 spots to 16th overall.

Canada was a bargain, though, compared to Hong Kong and San Francisco -- which maintained their positions as the world’s two most-expensive cities, based on four equal-weighted factors that comprise the index: the average monthly mortgage on a 1,000 square-foot home downtown, payments for a similar unit in the suburbs, and rents for a three-bedroom apartment in the city-center and on the outskirts of town.

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