Tsim Sha Tsui ranked fourth in the world for most expensive shopping street and continues to top the Asia-Pacific ranking as the most expensive retail destination in the region, according to an international property agency's 2024 Main Streets report, which focuses on headline rents in 138 best-in-class urban retail locations across the globe.

A European street took top spot for the first time with store rents in Via Montenapoleone in Milan rising by nearly a third over the past two years to US$2,047 (HK$15,966) per square foot.

Upper 5th Avenue in New York City was dethroned this year, sliding into second with rents at US$2,000 per sq ft.

London's New Bond Street leapfrogged Hong Kong's Tsim Sha Tsui to take third, despite the latter's positive rental growth. Yearly rents for Tsim Sha Tsui main street shops advanced by 7 percent year-on-year to an average of US$1,607 per sq ft.

But rents in New Bond Street surged by 13 percent year-on-year to US$1,762 per sq ft.

Causeway Bay and Central ranked second and seventh in the Asia Pacific rankings with yearly rents at US$1,430 and US$721 per sq ft respectively. Central moved up one spot from a year earlier, beating Shinjuku in Tokyo.

Russell Street in Causeway Bay once topped the list in the second quarter of 2018 with a yearly rent of US$2,671 per sq ft.

Rents across the 138 locations are now on average nearly 6 percent above pre-pandemic levels.

Rents in the four core districts in the city - Tsim Sha Tsui, Central, Causeway Bay and Mong Kok - bottomed out in 2023 and remained within the single-digit growth range of between 3 and 6 percent year-to-date as of the third quarter, according to an agent.