Cost of Living · Jul 3, 2026 · 4 min read
Why Rent Indices Beat Price Tags
Comparing absolute rents across cities is misleading. The right metric is a normalized index.
cost-of-living
By Editorial Desk
A simple thought experiment
A two-bedroom in central Lisbon and a two-bedroom in central Stockholm are not really the same product. Size, age, energy efficiency and floor plan all differ.
What an index does
A rent index abstracts those differences and gives you a single comparable number. New York = 100; everything else scales relative to it. It is not perfect, but it is far better than comparing local listings in their local currencies.
This site uses Numbeo-style baselines for that reason.