Saigon ranked 6th in a report released last month that graded 120 cities across the world based on real estate and socioeconomic factors.

The City Momentum Index (CMI) was compiled by Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL), a financial and professional services firm that specializes in commercial real estate services and investment management.

Jeremy Kelly, director of the company’s Global Research division explained the criteria taken into account when determining the CMI scores.

“While typical real estate performance rankings reveal most active investment and occupier markets, JLL’s CMI identifies the global cities changing fastest. By widening our lens to combine real estate dynamics such as investment, property prices and construction with socio-economic factors, we can better understand the drivers of city success by examining signals of change over the years.”

However, Kelly warned that a high ranking in the index was not a guarantee of future success.

“Having strong momentum presents cities with opportunities, but also risk. While the 2015 CMI highlights a city’s success and pace of change today, it doesn’t guarantee the future performance of commercial real estate or identify the hottest investment markets. We have seen the technology industry driving cities’ real estate markets year over year, but other trends, ranging from environment to education, impacted the pace of change, resulting in a shuffle of cities’ positions on the CMI,” he said.

Here are the top 20 cities in the 2015 City Momentum Index:

1) London
2) San Jose
3) Beijing
4) Shenzen
5) Shanghai
6) Ho Chi Minh City
7) Boston
8) Wuhan
9) San Francisco
10) Chongqing
11) Sydney
12) Bangalore
13) Dubai
14) Dublin
15) Nairobi
16) Melbourne
17) Singapore
18) New York
19) Tianjin
20) Nanjing

Head over to JLL’s website for a more detailed explanation of the report’s methodology.

[Photo via Richard Hopkins]