SWISS PROPERTY BOOM

The smart money is heading to Switzerland estate agents say. According to The Top Ten Most Expensive Streets in the World, a survey by Wealth Bulletin, Via Suvretta in the Swiss ski resort of St Moritz, was the only street on the list where prices rose for top properties over the past twelve months.

Ranked sixth on the list, a home on this street costs at least USD45,000 per square metre, which is 18 per cent more than this time last year. Prices have been pushed up by strong demand from foreign tax exiles, especially from Britain where many non-domiciled, wealthy foreigners have lost their privileged low-tax status.

Many Britons are joining these non-doms since the British government started raising taxes for all wealthy individuals say estate agency, Chesterton Humberts, and London property consultant, Charles McDowell.

In addition to St Moritz, rising demand from foreign HNWIs is pushing up prices in the posher districts of Zurich and Geneva.

“It’s no surprise that Swiss property has held its value and is in some areas rising," says McDowell, "Swiss bankers report that they aren’t seeing a large influx of Brits moving in but a number of my clients have gone forward with the purchase of a second home in Switzerland. This gives them the option of changing their residency if the tax situation in the UK or anywhere else becomes untenable."

As for the world's most expensive street, that's in Monaco the Wealth Bulletin survey reveals. Here is the survey's top ten in full:

• Avenue Princesse Grace, Monaco, $120,000 per sq/m
• Chemin de Saint-Hospice, Cap Ferrat, South of France, $100,000 per sq/m
• Fifth Avenue, New York, $72,000 per sq/m
• Kensington Palace Gardens, London, $65,000 per sq/m
• Avenue Montaigne, Paris, $54,000 per sq/m
• Via Suvretta, St Moritz, Switzerland, $45,000 per sq/m
• Via Romazzino, Porto Cervo, Sardinia,$42,000 per sq/m
• Severn Road, The Peak, Hong Kong, $40,000 per sq/m
• Ostozhenka Street, Moscow, $35,000 per sq/m
• Wolseley Road, Point Piper, Australia, $28,000 per sq/m

(All The World's a Home : Global Property News)