London Tops New York For Pricey Housing

"A recent study by CB Richard Ellis Hamptons International, a real estate consultancy, shows that the highest-end properties in London already are able to command as much as $5,860 per square foot, while similar properties in New York City are able to garner a mere $5,276 per square foot.

Other central London properties now cost around $2,300 a square foot, compared with $1,900 in New York.

Britain's housing market has been red-hot for over a decade, with average house prices close to tripling since the mid-1990s.

Price gains have been even more stratospheric in some of the best parts of central London -- neighborhoods such as Notting Hill -- where average costs have gone up more than 240 percent."