The cost of living in LatAm cities

Mercer has come out with its annual survey that ranks the cost of living in 215 major world cities for foreigners living there (note...this ranking does not rank the cost in terms for locals). Number one is the most expensive, number 215 is the cheapest. Now for sure we at IKN don't care much about the rest of the world because LatAm rules everything amen, so this little table shows how LatAm cities figure in the Mercer list:

Mercer: Cost of Living Survey
for foreigners in world cities
city	ranking
Sao Paulo	20
Rio de Janeiro	29
Havana	45
Bogota	66
Brasilia	70
Caracas	100
Santiago de Chile	123
Panama City	127
Montevideo	129
SJ Puerto Rico	129
Lima	135
Santo Domingo	147
Buenos Aires	161
Mexico City	166
Guatemala	169
SJ Costa Rica	183
Monterrey	193
Quito	194
Asuncion	204
Tegucigalpa	206
La Paz	211
Managua	212

The region's most expensive city is Sao Paulo Brazil, something that will surprise nobody who's been there. Havana ranks highly for foreigners mainly due to forex rules. Then comes Bogota, ranked 66 in the world. Looking down the list Buenos Aires still stands out as a bargain (thanks to that 4:1 forex to the dollar), as does Monterrey. La Paz is a great place to live, by the way, not just for the prices.

Liveable LatAm

The dudes at Mercer came out with their "Worldwide Cost of Living Survey", 2009 version yesterday. The thing is aimed at ex-pats doing business, not locals who know the cheap ways of living. The idea is that for U$585 (not joking) you get this big wodge of a report that will tell businesses just how much it costs to send their troops abroad.

As usual, we don't care much for the silly regions around the world like "North America" or "Europe" or "Asia" cos nothing much happens in those places anyway.....and they have no idea about how to make a decent mojito. Tokyo is top...big deal. So here we go with the important stuff...LatAm! Mercer surveyed 16 cities in the region (and although limited, gotta say the choices are fairly representative) and here's how they panned out. The ranking shows just how expensive the place is in the 143 cities surveyed.

City	Country	Rank
Caracas	Venezuela	15
Sao Paulo	Brazil	72
Rio de Janeiro	Brazil	73
Panama City	Panama	93
Santo Domingo	Dom. Rep.	104
Buenos Aires	Argentina	112
Guatemala City	Guatemala	119
Bogota	Colombia	120
Lima	Peru	122
Santiago	Chile	128
Montevideo	Uruguay	131
San Jose	Costa Rica	132
Quito	Ecuador	136
Mexico City	Mexico	137
Asuncion	Paraguay	141
Monterrey	Mexico	143

Way up and above the rest is Caracas at 15th most expensive. Now I'm not shelling out U$585 to read the whole report (you think I'm teh stoopid or summink?), but even though Caracas is pricey these days I'm guessing that the only way it can be that high is by calculating everything at the VEF2.15/U$1 official exchange rate. You seriously telling me a foreign exec would ignore the parallel market for his living expenses? If so, s/he ain't much of a bizperson to begin with...

Then comes usual expensive suspects Rio and SP in Brazil (and yes, they are expensive). But Caracas aside, seems that LatAm offers pretty good value compared to the rest of the world, as the 15 cities all come in the bottom half of the ranking. And when you factor in the amount of fun and life on offer down here, there's no better place in the world...well that's what I think, anyway. DYODD, dude.