Mapped: The World’s Least Affordable Housing Markets in 2024

Visual Capitalist

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June 24, 2024 Graphics/Design:

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The World’s Least Affordable Housing Markets in 2024

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Many cities around the world have become very expensive to buy a home in, but which ones are the absolute most unattainable?

In this graphic, we highlight a number of housing markets that are deemed to be “impossibly unaffordable” in 2024, ranked by their median price-to-income ratio.

This data comes from the Demographia International Housing Affordability Report, which is produced by the Chapman University Center for Demographics and Policy.

Data and Key Takeaway

The median price-to-income ratio compares median house price to median household income within each market. A higher ratio (higher prices relative to incomes) means a city is less affordable.

See the following table for all of the data we used to create this graphic. Note that this analysis covers 94 markets across eight countries: Australia, Canada, China, Ireland, New Zealand, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

RankMetropolitan MarketCountryMedian price-to-income
ratio 1Hong Kong (SAR)🇨🇳 China16.7 2Sydney🇦🇺 Australia13.8 3Vancouver🇨🇦 Canada12.3 4San Jose🇺🇸 U.S.11.9 5Los Angeles🇺🇸 U.S.10.9 6Honolulu🇺🇸 U.S.10.5 7Melbourne🇦🇺 Australia9.8 8San Francisco🇺🇸 U.S.9.7 9Adelaide🇦🇺 Australia9.7 10San Diego🇺🇸 U.S.9.5 11Toronto🇨🇦 Canada9.3 12Auckland🇳🇿 New Zealand8.2

According to the Demographia report, cities with a median price-to-income ratio of over 9.0 are considered “impossibly unaffordable”.

We can see that the top city in this ranking, Hong Kong, has a ratio of 16.7. This means that the median price of a home is 16.7 times greater than the median income.

Which Cities are More Affordable?

On the flipside, here are the top 12 most affordable cities that were analyzed in the Demographia report.

RankMetropolitan MarketCountryMedian price-to-income
ratio 1Pittsburgh🇺🇸 U.S.3.1 2Rochester🇺🇸 U.S.3.4 2St. Louis🇺🇸 U.S.3.4 4Cleveland🇺🇸 U.S.3.5 5Edmonton🇨🇦 Canada3.6 5Buffalo🇺🇸 U.S.3.6 5Detroit🇺🇸 U.S.3.6 5Oklahoma City🇺🇸 U.S.3.6 9Cincinnati🇺🇸 U.S.3.7

The full article is available here. This article was published at Visual Capitalist.