A street in Mexico City’s swanky Polanco district has the highest commercial rents in Latin America, according to a report by an international real estate firm.

The study Main Streets Across the World by real estate services company Cushman & Wakefield found that average annual commercial rents on Avenida Presidente Masaryk are US $1,011 per square meter.

Renting a small 50-square-meter space on Masaryk would cost US $4,212 a month.

Named after the first president of Czechoslovakia, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, the avenue is home to luxury brand boutiques and high-end restaurants among other businesses that cater to the well-heeled.

Masaryk ranked as the 13th most expensive street on which to rent a commercial space in the Americas and the 37th among those studied by Cushman & Wakefield in 67 cities around the world.

Despite the high ranking, commercial rents have actually fallen almost 6% on the street compared to last year, while across Mexico rents have “generally been edging down in the last year as a result of weaker demand, particularly at the luxury end of the market,” the report said.

Causeway Bay in Hong Kong has the highest commercial rents in the world followed by Fifth Avenue in New York, New Bond Street in London, the Champs-Élysées in Paris and Via Montenapoleone in Milan.

Causeway Bay rents average $28,216 per square meter per year, almost 28 times higher than those paid on Masaryk. A 50-square-meter shop would rent for $117,500 a month.

In Latin America, the second and third most expensive streets for commercial rents were in Bogotá, Colombia, and São Paulo, Brazil, respectively.

The cheapest rents among the 67 cities studied were in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, where a 50-square-meter commercial space can be rented on the city’s most expensive shopping strip for $870 a month.

Source: El Financiero (sp), De10 (sp)