Rents in and around London increased throughout Q1 and Q2 and are now noticeably higher than pre-pandemic levels. As demand outstrips supply, rents bounced back at historic rates since their pandemic low point in Q1 2021.
Before discussing the rental market in Istanbul, a housing source shared an old Ottoman wives’ tale about Turkish coffee.
In St. Maarten, two main currencies are used: the U.S. dollar (USD) and the Netherlands Antillean guilder (ANG). Throughout the country I saw both currencies listed for prices in stores.
After being away from survey travel for more than a year, it was an experience getting readjusted while simultaneously learning the new processes of international pandemic travel.
If it's not the most interesting job in the world, it's certainly one of them. AIRINC Cost-of-Living Surveyors travel all over the world for roughly six months of the year to collect pricing data. On the surface, this is the dream job for anyone that thrives on challenging global travel – the kind that takes grit and determination to grind through as you move cities on a seemingly daily basis. Instead of touring from site to site though, you move from store to store and source to source in each location, collecting data to populate a market basket of goods, services, housing, and hardship data.
Having worked as a surveyor for AIRINC, I can tell you it is one of the most unique and fascinating jobs in the world. On the surface, this is the dream job for anyone that thrives on challenging global travel – the kind that takes grit and determination to grind through as you move on a seemingly daily basis. Instead of touring from site to site though, you move from store to store and source to source, collecting data to populate a market basket of goods, services, housing, and hardship data.
Over my fifteen years of cost of living surveys, I’ve traveled by taxi, subway, commuter rail, and ferry to collect data. Once, while pricing a supermarket in China, I noticed bicycles were under 140 CYN (20 USD). Tired of crawling through traffic in taxis, I bought a bike and completed the survey riding around the city. I really enjoyed the freedom a biking survey provided but assumed it was an isolated event.
Below is a video series taken by AIRINC Surveyor, Zenab Tavakoli, during her recent cost of living survey in Rome, Italy. We hope you enjoy this glimpse into survey life and the world of Global Mobility!
While AIRINC has an international survey team that travels globally each quarter to collect data, we as a company are all travelers. To share and connect as a group, we host a photo contest annually and hang the winner’s picture in our Cambridge headquarters, helping to decorate our still new-feeling office at 675 Massachusetts Ave.
Andrew Morollo, AIRINC’s most seasoned international cost-of-living surveyor, visited his 200th unique survey city in 2018. To honor this milestone, Andrew tells us about his career, and the lessons he’s learnt from 15 years of surveying, and a lifetime of travel.
