Beijing, Hong Kong and Taipei landlords’ returns on investment from rent or Airbnb lets are lowest in the world, survey finds

Hong Kong Airbnb members take longer to rack up rental proceeds matching their property’s value than those in every other major city in the world apart from Beijing, a survey shows.

They would need to rent out their properties for 38 years using the popular website, and nearly 48 years if they let them the conventional way, to get a 100 per cent return on their investment, the survey of property values and rents in 75 cities by London-based agency Nested found. In Beijing, owners need to let properties via Airbnb for nearly 60 years to achieve the same.

Hong Kong has the most expensive three-bedroom property, with an average price of more than US$2.4 million (HK$18.6 million), while Egypt’s capital, Cairo, ranked the lowest at US$60,293 for a three-bedroomed property.

The study was based on figures for thousands of properties sold in the past 12 months, or those on the market. Data for the study also came from record offices in each city, the World Bank, HSBC data and The Economist.

According to the study, Durban in South Africa is the fastest city to recover property prices via Airbnb (18 months), while Lagos in Nigeria is the fastest via traditional renting (132 months, or 11 years). Taipei is slowest via traditional renting, at 693 months, or 57 years nine months.