Tbilisi against Yerevan: rents about a fifth cheaper, groceries level, purchasing power higher in Tbilisi

Read against Tbilisi, Yerevan comes out 13.6 per cent more expensive excluding rent and 15.5 per cent more expensive including it. Rents are 21.3 per cent higher in Yerevan and restaurants 12.8 per cent higher. Groceries are the exception: 0.4 per cent lower in Yerevan, which is effectively the same basket. Local purchasing power is reported 15.6 per cent lower in Yerevan, meaning the typical local wage buys less there than in Tbilisi even before the rent difference.

For a one-bedroom apartment in the city centre, the reported monthly rent is 1,756 lari in Tbilisi against 2,398 lari in Yerevan — Yerevan about 36.5 per cent higher on this specific line, a wider gap than the 21.3 per cent all-rents figure. On purchase price per unit of area in the city centre, Yerevan comes out roughly 45 per cent higher than Tbilisi. For a landlord, the pairing is the interesting part: Yerevan has higher rents and considerably higher entry prices, which is a different yield equation rather than simply a more expensive city.

These are crowdsourced figures: prices submitted by users rather than collected by a statistical office. Numbeo reports 155 contributors for Tbilisi over the previous twelve months. That is enough to be indicative and not enough to be authoritative, and the sample skews towards people who use the site — often foreigners and higher earners in central districts. Use it for direction of travel between two cities, and use the Public Registry, Geostat or a local valuer for anything you are actually signing.

Tbilisi and Yerevan sit about four hours apart by road, run similar visa-free regimes for many nationalities, and compete for the same remote workers, regional company registrations and short-stay tourists. Someone choosing between them is usually weighing three things at once: monthly cost, entry price into property, and how easily money and residency move. On the cost and entry-price lines, this week's data puts Tbilisi lower on both. The residency and tax questions are separate and move faster than price indices do.